Raising Minimum Wage Report

Superior Essays
When analyzing the topic of minimum wage, it is very diverse. Concerning the issue of raising minimum wage, many people hold different outlooks. Primarily, an increase in minimum wage will benefit The United States of America long term, but it also can negatively affect business owners and the less educated. Raising the minimum wage has also been considered to increase job opportunities and decrease the poverty rate. An increase in minimum wage may enhance the lives of citizens, but it could also hurt them. There are many different views concerning the alteration of the minimum wage, however it should be kept the same.
Particularly, raising the minimum wage will hurt the less educated people. Because they lack schooling, they often do not
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The poverty level of unemployed low-waged workers has risen in the cities that have raised the minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour. Eleven percent of adolescents in the United States have been affected in their city, justifying that raising the minimum wage has decreased the poverty level (Leigh 1355). Studies by Komro et al and Tsao et al show that increasing the minimum wage will also improve public health. These studies showed that by raising the wage, the occurrences of low birth weight will go down. If all fifty states in 2014 would have raised their minimum wage by one dollar, an estimated 2,790 fewer low birth weight births would have taken place (Leigh 1355).
Explaining the pros and cons of raising minimum wage, the article between Reihan Salam and Dr. Paul J. Leigh explains how an increase can help and hurt many different kinds of people. Salam disagrees with raising of minimum wage. He claims that it will hurt the less educated people and it will be harder for them to compete for a low paying job with the highly educated (Salam). Conversely, Dr. Paul J. Leigh wrote claims that raising the minimum wage will help people and make for more affordable health care. He also states that jobs will increase for young adults (Leigh
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They additionally believe that if you cannot support your family on what you are making, it is then the government 's job to make sure you are getting what you need to support your family. If a business is wealthy, and a worker cannot support their family, then they should be getting paid more. This means that greed is not relevant because if there is someone struggling, it is your duty to assist them. So, if a company has the money to be paying their employees higher wages, they should do so if workers are struggling (Knopf). A higher minimum wage could be good for some people who are willing to work for today 's minimum wage. If someone is employed, they already have a foot in the door. Most of the high school students who already have a job want the minimum wage to be raised.
Lastly, if the minimum wage goes up, businesses may not be able to function. The small, family owned companies will be going out of business because they cannot afford to hire people to help. People will want to choose the jobs that pay more, rather than the jobs that do not. The larger companies will then have to compete with the wealthier companies overseas such as ones located in India and China. America will start importing more of their products from overseas and then the American factory workers will start getting laid off. This will lead to more people on welfare and tariffs going

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