What should the national minimum wage be? Should we even have a national minimum wage? How do you calculate a "living wage"? What are the implications for businesses if the minimum wage is raised? What do you predict would happen to the economy? Why do you think Congress has been so reluctant to raise minimum wage?
DUE Sunday, October 7
DUE Sunday, October 7
32 comments:
As a teenager, I obviously am a big percentage of the type of people who are working for minimum wage. I had a job last winter that paid minimum wage and I must say that it was basically just depressing. I would put massive amounts of hours in at work, and my paycheck still would not be what I wanted, or even expected. I think that with the costs of gas, food, clothes, and other essential things today, minimum wage should be at least nine dollars. This seems reasonable because of how high prices have gotten for many of the things that are needed in our world today. I do not agree that a national minimum wage is something that is a good idea to have. It is pretty obvious that certain cities are a lot more expensive to live in than others in our country. In a small city it could be easy for someone who is making seven dollars an hour to get by fine when it comes to money, where as for someone living in a huge city it could be extremely difficult, if not impossible. I would calculate a living wage by considering where a person lives, the size of their family, and what they consider to be “comfortable” living. A man providing for a family of seven has to make a lot more money than a man providing for a family of three. The answer is obvious. Although it would be great for minimum wage to be raised to ten dollars, we also have to realize that this would cause businesses to have to raise prices. When you take all of this into account it becomes obvious that either way, minimum wage is never enough. No matter how much they raise it, it is still going to be hard to afford the things we want, or feel that we need. I feel that this would hurt our economy. Although people would be making more money, I think that higher prices would cause people to not want to buy, therefore causing the economy to drop. This is the reason why I think Congress has been so reluctant to change minimum wage. I think that they realize that it will only make people happy to a certain point. Once prices of clothes, food, gas, and luxury items are raised people will be mad again and ready to complain even more.
Minimum wage is a hard topic to tackle. Yes I think it should be raised, but I don’t think it’s likely to rise anytime soon again. I had a job over the summer and was paid minimum wage, but that’s what you expect when you’re a teenager that’s just graduated high school. You have to look at the big picture when talking about minimum wage and the affect it will have.
The most obvious affect raising the minimum wage will be that the people at the bottom will get paid more, which is always nice. They will have more spending money and be able to raise their standard of living. All are good things, but I don’t think that it’s likely to happen just like that.
When you raise minimum wage then the business and suppliers in turn have to raise their prices on goods. Because they have to pay people more then they use to, in order to counter that they can only raise prices because that’s all they can do to stay in business. So all the extra money the people are making form the raise is not really helping because they have to spend more to buy goods.
In turn the economy will have to adjust to the increasing amount of money that is being circulated which could lead to inflation. But there has always been inflation, but the economy has been able to handle it and make it profitable. I don’t know how much more it can take before it cracks.
Raising minimum wage has some good points, but I think the bad points out weigh the good. So minimum wage should not be raised because it will hurt business and the economy ore then the people they are trying to help.
Minimum wage is a hard topic to discuss because you do not know what will really happen if minimum wage is lifted. Will things stay the same? Or will the price of everything increase and then we will be right back into the same cycle but people need bigger sums of money. I do not have the qualifications to say one way or another what really will happen. There are a lot of people right now in our country who are working two or three minimum wage jobs and cannot stay out of poverty. I think this a major issue that we as American need to fix. I am not sure how to fix it but if it involves raising minimum wage then I am all for it. I think minimum wage should be around seven dollars an hour. You work more hours, you get more money, which is how it works. Living wage fluctuates from state to state and from city to city. I think it would be hard to judge minimum wage on the living wage as a national level. I think the states should take care of what the minimum wage should be. Most states now have minimum wage higher than the national wage but some do not. To calculate the minimum wage you take the minimum wage times forty and then subtract what the average grocery trip cost and other living conditions, such has the utilities like water and electric. And then you see if you are in the negative if you are then you must try a different minimum wage until you get into the green. I think congress will not raise the minimum wage because they too do not know what is exactly what is that they would change themselves. This summer I worked for minimum wage and it is not fun at all. It feels like you work your tail off for just a little bit of money, especially when I am trying to save up money for something. It seems like it takes me forever; just one little step at a time. And the thing is ohio minimum wage is higher than the national minimum wage. I feel bad for the people who have to work minimum wage jobs, let alone the ones that work more than one of them.
How fortunate I am never to have worked a job where I get paid minimum wage by the hour. If I did, I think I would have gone insane by now. For me minimum wage is like working for nothing. $5.15 an hour not to mention having the government take out a third in taxes so in all reality instead of being pain $5 dollars an hour you get close to $3.75. I was fortunate enough to start working as a soccer referee where you are paid in cash without having taxes taken out of it. I averaged around twenty to twenty-five dollars a game, but after a while I became immensely lazy and stopped working and spent all my money. About that time was when my parents demanded that all of us get a job. I was the most successful because my best friends’ dad owns an ice cream shop back in town. However, once I saw how much I was being paid and then taken out of my pay check I thought I was being robbed. Having the government take about twenty percent of your pay check is just wrong, especially when you’re fifteen, sixteen years old trying to support a significant other as well as yourself. After three years of working in the field of making ice cream, I got a second job over the summer working at a warehouse. It was eleven to twelve hour days, five to six days a week, and not to mention it was exhausting and a lot physical labor. I was paid $9.00 an hour and overtime in a half after I reached forty hours a week. Before my first day’s work I thought that it was a pretty good idea, but after all the work, sweat, and yes blood I retracted my previous statement. I got my first pay check from A-Classic Party Rental Company for $765.21; out of the actual $1,035.10 that it said I made. I had over $300 dollars in taxes taken out of my pay check, however the best part about it is that I claimed a “2” on my W-4’s which means that I have a spouse or significant other. Through all my experience of work and hearing all the others in the shop I realized that it is even hard to live on more than three to four times of minimum wage. Seeing how other employees most of which didn’t graduate college; barely live comfortably enough to support them not to mention if they have a girlfriend, because we know they isn’t cheep.
Economics is a very fragile subject and which I do not know very much about. However, it is indeed a subject that is not discussed a lot because it raises a lot of issues. I know recently President Bush signed a bill that was to increase minimum wage. July 2007 is set at $5.85, it is to increase to $6.55 July 2008, and increase to $7.25 July 2009. I think it is almost impossible for people to live off six dollars an hour, especially if they get no overtime. I think the minimum wage should be no less than $8 dollars an hour. I’m sure that presents an issue because it can cause businesses to hire less people. Also the business will become much more conservative with the people they hire. What I mean by this is, I believe the businesses will be conservative about race issues and to what degree a person is educated. There are a lot of United States citizens who only have a high school education. It is almost impossible to calculate someone’s minimum wage because each person has different variables which they live under. It depends whether or not a person has kids, disabilities, or even medical issues. Each of these variables presents their own problems. They each can be very expensive if the person is to be treated well. Well, since the minimum has been raised in effect of President Bush’s bill I am not sure what will happen to the economy. Even though the United States is the home of the free and the land of the brave it will never be totally fair or even. Every citizen will not be treated with the same courtesy as the person next to you. I think since the United States is growing Congress has been making more drastic cuts on money given to the poor. There are a lot of charities set up by very rich or affluent citizens. Which in essence is a great thing; what people will give away from their own savings.
Being a teenager and working for minimum paying jobs I think the national minimum wage should be increased to be about $7.50. That is because the cost of living has increased in the last couple of years and minimum wage jobs won’t cover the bills. The main things people pay for today is rent, food and transportation. The cost of rent, food and transportation are increasing and the amount of money income is staying still. I think the congress should raise the national minimum wage because of those issues. In class we read the story on how a lady worked at Wal-Mart and couldn’t afford to live in a house; she lived in a motel where she could rent a room out at weekly rates. I know that increasing minimum wage will make the labor output for businesses higher. That would make businesses raise their products. This is a very delicate cycle, but any properly ran business could handle it. The minimum wage in Ohio increased last year, and all the businesses had to raise their products, but from what I could tell no businesses were hurt by it too bad. I understand some of the newer businesses might have problems but once they get things running they should be fine. I think the economy will be greatly increased and do much better with the increase in minimum wage. I think that the minimum wage workers will have more money to spend on things that they need causing an increase in the economy. I think that congress has been so reluctant to change the minimum wage in the past years because it has been very conservative. Conservatives don’t like the idea of raising minimum wage. With the congress changing into becoming more liberal I think we might have a raise in the minimum wage.
I think overall the increase in minimum wage will better our country. The economy will do better and people will have more money to spend and make their lives better.
I absolutely feel that the United States, as well as every nation should have a minimum wage law. It is every humans inherent right to find decent work that provides enough money for the necessities of life. I believe that the minimum wage should be $7.50 or $8. If people are working for less than that then in my opinion it is unjust. With how expensive prices are today anything less than that is too low. This is a good wage for people who are not paying bills. For people who are paying bills and are self-dependent, then even this minimum wage is not adequate. A minimum wage is very important because it assures that people are getting decent pay and are not being discriminated against by a certain employer. I believe that a living wage is calculated by finding out how much money is needed to live decently. The implications for businesses if the minimum wage is raised is that they have to pay their employees more money which chances are will come out of their total revenues. I believe overall that the economy will be helped if the minimum wage law is raised because more people will have more money to purchase more things and thus keep the economy flourishing. However, raising of minimum wage laws could potentially be harmful to the economy as well. If businesses are told they must pay a certain amount of money to their employees that they don’t have, the company will have to lay off some of their workers so they have enough money to pay other workers the amount the law prescribes. If this is the case, then raising minimum wage laws can be counter-productive and actually result in unemployment. Due to this, I feel like the only way to raise minimum wage laws for the good of the economy is if the government subsidizes these companies to help offset the difference that the minimum brings. The government is reluctant to raise minimum wage laws because they will have to subsidize and it will be money out of their pocket.
I think that we should have a national minimum wage because it will help to keep all of the states regulated in the minimum wage that they give out. However, it is very complicated and difficult to say what the minimum wage should be because if it is too high then that will hurt small businesses; whereas, if it is too low, that will hurt the economy because of a decreased consumer consumption of products. I think right now the minimum wage should be between $7.50 and $9.00. Because gas is so expensive as well as healthcare and insurance, I think that the minimum wage should be at least $7.50 because low-income families can’t keep up with the high rising cost of things in today’s economy. However, even $7.50 an hour isn’t that much better either. In my opinion, a “living wage” is the money it takes to provide shelter, food, clothing, and transportation. Right now, I think the minimum wage isn’t enough to cover that especially when a family with two parents and a couple of kids are only living off two sets of minimum wage. If a single person is living on minimum wage that’s one story, if a family of four or more is living off of minimum wage that has to be extremely difficult to make it each year. The complicated processes of a raise in minimum wage is that if you raise the minimum wage too high, it hurts small businesses and companies which in turn decreases jobs. This hurts the economy. On the other hand, if you keep the minimum wage the same or lower it, people would have to work more than forty hours a week to get a somewhat decent paycheck. It also hurts consumer buying which in turn hurts the economy. I think Congress is reluctant to raise minimum wage because inflation could occur as well as hurt businesses. Even though it might give the economy a temporary boost, it wouldn’t last forever and then the economy would probably have a downfall for awhile. Either way they go, Congress will have to face many difficulties because there is no easy answer.
Right now, minimum wage is a big issue. It has just gone up recently in Ohio and it has been a big topic of debate. I personally don’t think minimum wage should be increased because all that does is make the cost of everything else increase. When workers get paid more, prices go up; it’s as simple as that. If the minimum was increases the price of bread, cereal, meat, and milk increases as well. So, I do not think that it helps anyone to increase the minimum wage. Of course, it sounds better and you think you are making more then you did before but really you are only able to afford the same amount of things because business will just raise their prices to compensate for the extra money that they have to give out.
My first job I started out at 7.50 an hour and that was nice. I was excited that I would be making more than minimum wage then the min wage increased but my pay did not because I was still making more that the minimum. This makes my pay really decrease because I cannot afford the same amount of things because the prices for items have went up due to the increase in minimum wage. For some people this is what happens, they go from getting paid a decent amount of money to minimum wage which is not where they started out at so technically they have been short changed. Now, eventually I did get a raise but that’s because I became the third key so I had a lot more responsibility and therefore that required more money. Now I make 8.93 an hour, but obviously I am not working right now because I am in school but on breaks and during the summer I will be working a lot.
I think the national minimum wage is fine where it is. The Ohio minimum wage is a little high I think. The high the minimum wage is, the higher the prices of goods will go up and the unemployment will go up because businesses will not be able to afford to pay the employees more. I think the minimum wage is an important thing, because without it, mean business workers would not pay their employees a respectable amount of money. If the minimum wage is raised, business will have to raise the prices of their goods. The increased amount that business will have to pay their employees will cause them to not be able to afford to pay as many employees. The business will have to fire some people and more people will become unemployed. The more unemployed people there are, the less money will be spent in the economy. The less money in the economy will result in the stock market going down, and we all know what can happen after that. If the minimum wage is raised, I think the economy will go down. People will want to spend less because the prices will go up. Congress has been reluctant to raise the minimum wage because that they know that bad things will happen if they do. They know that if they raise it, the price of everything will raise, and the employment will raise, and the stock market will go down. They only reason people want the minimum wage raised, is because they want more money now, and they are not thinking about the fact that if they make more money, they will have to spend more money. I have worked many jobs, and have always been paid more than the minimum wage, even though they just recently raised it a couple summers ago. I personally do not have a problem with the minimum wage, but I can understand why some people do. I think that they can keep working hard, and wait for their hard work to pay off.
I personally say that minimum wage right know s hurting the development of the people because you work hard and only receive a very small amount in return. This is a problem that Americans face every day went they are looking for a job to help them sustain their family they find out that the money that they are making is not enough. With the passing of the years the prices of living have rising like for example the price of gasoline, and the price of food and still we have the same minimum wage. This minimum wage needs to be changed because is holding the development of America I have to say that personally I think that we should not have any minimum wage. That the company and the employ decided how much they are going to pay. In some parts of the country the federal minimum wage is higher than in other places but I think that to fix this problem you have to give the same minimum wage to every part of society and that this way no one can have more opportunity of making more money in the same position in another place or state. Following my idea of not having a minimum wage I will prefer having a board or a list of salaries that depending in the position you will start earning in your job and from there you build your way up. But also you have to keep in mind that the cost of living is not the same in Ohio that in New York so you have to study the cost of living to see if an employ of your company will be able to sustain their family. So I have to say that right know the minimum wage doesn’t have a good effect in the building of a sustaintible society.
I work at Meijer and have been working there for about two years. Incase you didn’t know what that was it’s a grocery store like a Wal-Mart but better quality. Minimum Wage is not really a big factor there because of the Union. Minimum Wage is necessary to make sure that companies don’t cheat you out. It protects you from being payed less or more then the other people. It might not create an incentive to work harder but it does give some kind of support to people. I was earning a little more then minimum wage and I could handle the financial burdens. I must say that money was slim but it was possible. Now that is for one person, for a family there is no way minimum wage would work. I think minimum wage should be raised but with that come all sorts of problems. First of all the government is already in so much debt it will never be paid back. I don’t see minimum wage being raised for a little bit. With the war going on in Iraq I don’t see much of an opening for more money to be dished out. As much as we need the minimum wage to be raised I think there are some more important issues today. We need to step up and help some countries, stop the fighting, fund the fighting, national security, research and development.
I could go on for days about the things we need money for. Money is important but raising the minimum wage would create less incentive to work harder. This is a big thing America lacks right now. Unions let people think they don’t have to work harder for more money. For example the GM protest not too long ago. People just have to protest to get more money so why work harder. Minimum wage would act like a union the only noticeable difference is the protection you get in a Union.
When thinking about minimum wage you have to think of the typical minimum wage workers are. Well minimum wage is intended for kids. This is why these jobs do not consist of much more than saying “paper or plastic?” or sweeping the floor or cleaning an area. The jobs that pay minimum wages you do not have to exactly be a scientist to perform well. Like I stated minimum wage is for kids. Kids that are in junior high or high school that are trying to be introduced into the working life style and want to make a little bit of cash while mom and dad are still taking care of them. Even though minimum wage is typically for teenagers there are many adults that try to get by on minimum wage which in today’s world is extremely difficult especially if you have a family that you are trying to support. When my parents where my age working for minimum wage and have a normal life was possible. Today however, in order to take a girl out to a movie you are looking at tickets being close to ten dollars each then snacks typically another 15 you are spending 35 dollars just to take your girlfriend to a movie. The gas prices where they are now makes it even harder to work at minimum wage. The only way minimum wage will be affective is if it is raised to eight or nine dollars. The only problem with this is with minimum wage at eight or nine dollars the economy will inflate causing prices to go up even more. You cannot determine minimum wage by location of living because then people will just go to these big cities and there will still be less jobs and minimum wage is suppose to be the minimum as a standard that companies should pay more than but they do not. This is why congress does not do anything about this because there is no way to avoid the minimum wage problem unless there is a deflation which we all know will never happen.
I always thought the minimum wage was rather on the cheap side but I do think we should have one. I feel that if we didn’t have a minimum wage, businesses would look to pay the “not-so-important” workers even less.
I think a good minimum wage would be around $7.50 an hour. If you think about it, the government alone takes out so much due to taxes, it’s really like you’re making $7 an hour. The cost of living now-a-days has gone up that people can’t make a living working for only $5 or $6 an hour. Even though it’s mostly just teenagers who are making the minimum wage, they too need money. Most teenagers wallets are being hit hard with the raising price of gas and therefore need to work two jobs just to get by. I’ve always had the privilege of working for our family business and have been lucky enough to make a great wage for a teenager.
I believe that “living wage” is calculated by taking the normal family and finding out what they need to survive. They should measure how much food they’d eat, how much gas money, electricity’s, and other every day essentials they’d need for a week.
The implications for businesses if they minimum wage is raised is that they will obviously have to pay all their employers more. If the business is already struggling and can’t afford to pay their employers more, I feel that they’d have to let a few of them go.
With the raise of the minimum wage, hopefully the economy will prosper from it. People would end up making more money and be able to afford more for themselves. Families would have a better lifestyle and kids would be able to pay more for themselves and do things they’ve always wanted to do.
I think that Congress has been reluctant to raise the minimum wage because they might fear that they will lose money. They also might be thinking about the smaller companies in our nation that won’t be able to fulfill the raise. They could also be thinking about everyone. If people make more than prices everywhere would end up going and the raise that they received will be worthless.
Minimum wage is a big issue that has been debated about for many years. It is hard to find a happy medium, where people can make a living, and the prices of everything isn’t too high. I feel that there is no solution to the minimum wage issue. I understand that people are trying to earn livings off of the small amount of money that they are earning with minimum wage, but raising it isn’t the answer. If you raise minimum wage, then all the business are going to raise their prices on things; and after that, we are back where we started because the price of living is going to be higher. The only way to combat poverty, is to go out and work your ass off to get a good job. It is survival of the fittest and it has been going on for thousands of years. I stinks that some people can’t make enough money to provide for their families, but just handing them more money isn’t helping them, because it’s going to cost them that much more money to get food, and clothing.
Many different ideas have been posted to solving the issue, and one that I noticed was to set age limits on how much you should get paid. That would never work, because business owners would only hire young people, so that they can pay them less money. That idea would never work, and should never be thought about again.
I feel that the only time minimum wage should be raised is in accordance with price inflation of the economy. It is not fair for minimum wage workers to be getting shorted due to price inflation. Most of the people who work for minimum wage are teenagers, trying to earn gas money, and spending cash. They don’t have a real need to be making gobs of money. It is not the government’s responsibility to pick up the slack for every person that wants to lie around and have money just handed to them. Those are the people who I don’t feel sorry for. If someone can come up with a way to help the people out who can’t possibly get any other job, and need to make more money, then they will have solved a very big problem. Before that problem solution is found, there is no way to do it so that everyone wins in the situation.
I have experienced working at a minimum wage job and a higher paying job, and there are massive differences. I had worked at a Marble Slab for about a year and a half where I would scoop ice cream for hours waiting on busy customers, cleaning bathrooms, cleaning dishes, wiping counters, and all of that fun stuff. Then for the last two years I have worked at a law firm where I am paid a bit more than minimum wage where I don’t have to deal with physical labor. The minimum wage is a difficult subject because there is a reason that there are minimum wage jobs, however sometimes it’s the best someone can do.
I think there should be many different factors to go into the minimum wage. I think there should be jobs available for people who can’t afford to live on minimum wage. A typical person that works a minimum wage job can’t survive on a $7.15 minimum wage. If there was a way to help those people that have to live on minimum wage would be better, but it is difficult to say who needs it and who doesn’t. There are teenagers that work to help out their family, so how can we say that there is a certain wage for teenagers and one for adults. I think it is hard to establish a minimum wage because there is a reason that there is a minimum wage. A minimum wage job is designed for people who may not even have a high school degree.
There are many factors that go into a living wage. There is where your located, married or not married, kids or no kids, and basic health problems. If your spouse has cancer, there are so many bills that you have to deal with that you can’t keep up with even if you have a decent paying job. Another thing is living in a large city or a suburb. The costs will be different, as well as the taxes you will have to pay. If you have kids, there is more money you have to put into kids. As young adults, we do not realize how much they are. It’s difficult to not only raise them, but buying clothes and feeding them takes a huge amount of money. If you are living on minimum wage, it is extremely difficult to raise a child with a salary like that. A minimum wage job can’t even support you, but with kids in addition it just doesn’t work.
The problem for businesses is it more expenses it will cost. Even if they had a pay that is available for adults, businesses would stop hiring adults. Then all the teenagers will have taken the jobs, which defeat the purpose of helping out people that need money to live on. Some businesses just need people to do easy jobs, and can’t afford to pay a lot to someone for simple tasks.
The economy would start getting off balanced. The higher the minimum wage, inflation will occur more. However, the businesses will have trouble paying people because that is a lot of money to pay for someone to do simple tasks.
Congress does not want to raise minimum wage because it will cause inflation, and businesses will suffer more if they do raise it. Also, businesses will be reluctant to hire more people due to that they are paying more.
Talking about minimum wage is a touchy subject because there are so many implications that happen once that it is increased. Where the real question is to what extent they will happen. I think that it is not necessary for the federal government to have a minimum wage. This is because I’m almost positive that most states have their own minimum wage that is higher than the federal one. The federal government shouldn’t talk about it so much if the states have their own laws. A small minimum wage, however, I think is necessary. This prevents businesses to basically make their workers slaves. It is virtually impossible to live off of minimum wage, no matter what your situation. There are many things that happen when the minimum wage is raised. I have seen these through my friends, as the Ohio minimum wage just increased; I have personally never worked for less than minimum wage. I have one friend who is a lifeguard, who prior to the increase was making over the minimum. However, after the law went into effect, his pay stayed the same. He now is getting paid the same amount as the people who work the front desk increased, even though his job has much more responsibility as a life guard. I don’t believe that this would make sense to anyone, I don’t care who you are. I have another friend that works at Wendy’s. I’m not sure what he was getting paid, but he did tell me that they had to raise the prices of several of their items to help compensate. They also hired less people at a time; this means that he was getting less hours and thus getting paid less. Both of these things affected everyone that goes to Wendy’s. Not only will it cost more for your food, but it will probably take longer for you to get it because there less people are working. The minimum wage also effects the economy. At first there will be more money in the money supply and people will buy things, thus a boost in the economy. However, this is will be short lived because after all of the businesses make their adjustments, the economy will lower back down. It is a question of whether it goes down below where it was before the raise to see if it was successful. I don’t think that this is the best answer for boosting the economy mostly because most politicians are not economists. Let us leave it to the federal reserve to control the money supply and the economy.
Minimum wage is a topic that everyone will have their own opinion on. As a teenager and like most teenagers, my only source of income comes from jobs that pay minimum wage. My ideas on this subject are going to be bias because it directly affects me. I do believe that the minimum wage should be raised from $5.85 to around $7.00. This is a large increase but unlike people like me who have their parents to “milk” money from they have payments and are barely making it by on minimum wage. In calculating a minimum wage many aspects come into play like the size of the family in which the wage needs to support, the house payments as well as transportation payments.
If minimum wage is raised by any amount businesses will not be pleased because this means they are being forced to pay their lower employees more money. This means they will have less money to invest in what they believe to be necessary commodities. In the short term I believe raising minimum wage will cause unemployment rates to increase. This is because if business have to pay employees more who in reality have very little impact on the business they will choose not to and deal task out the jobs that these people would be doing to other more useful employees. This rise in minimum wage will cause inflation to the economy. I believe that if the minimum wage is not going to be raised then taxes should be lower for these people so they can take the money they have made home rather then have to pay 30% for taxes. I believe that Congress has been so reluctant to raise minimum wage because of the reasons I explained before of having a rise in unemployment or have to decrease the taxes. The solution I believe to raise minimum wage and lower these risk is to do like the government is doing and increase it very little but steadily so business don’t see the impact it has on them all at once.
Even though I would love for minimum wage to rise I do believe that a large increase all at once will cause a negative impact on the economy as well as cause inflation to rise in the short term.
National minimum wage should be higher because I think that it would make for less poverty and would help the country reach a higher income. The national minimum wage should be $7.50 plus benefits in some jobs because the workload is not worth any less. I worked in a manufacturing plant for the last 3 years and it pay pretty good for a teenager, but the work that I do in there is hardly worth what I get paid. I think these factors should be calculated into what the wage will be. Having a national minimum wage is necessary because it gives a requirement because some people are moral enough to give a good wage. Calculating a living wage would be hard because it wouldn’t be the way that people live, it would be what they need to live comfortable. Then you run into problems what each person thinks comfortable living is. Each person has their own perception of they think should have when they work a certain job and some are legitimate and some people kid themselves into thinking they should make more. That is why minimum wage is hard to put into the people hands.
Businesses would not be hurt that much for a raise in minimum wage because they shouldn’t be giving their workers bare minimum wage. On the other hand it would help the economy because it would make for an easier income for many lower class families. There would be a raise in living standards because people would be buying more and not saving because they didn’t have as much. I think that congress has been very hesitant to raise minimum wage because they are afraid of the feedback they are going to get from the businesses across America. Each person should get their fair share for what they work for because if they don’t they are just being cheated for their hard work. Many people also sacrifice their lives for work so they should be rewarded for being devoted to what they do.
After reading the exerpt form Nickles and Dimes I feel that for teenager, or college student that are still living off of their parents their should be a minimum wage. But for the people who this is their only income they should be able to have more of a salary. Even though this may seem like an unfair process, I feel that no person can live healthy off of a minimum wage job. I feel that it would be extremely hard for people to survive with this kind of money.
I feel that some sort of process should happen, like for the people were this is their only income that they should have a more demanding job and be ablr to live comfortably. Even though this may not be realistic I feel that people should give this a shot and be more aware of the people that are struggling in our society.
While the idea of having a higher minimum wage sounds great, the effects of it may not be worth it. As much as all of us teenagers would love to have a low key summer job paying nine dollars an hour, it is somewhat unrealistic. Not to mention what would happen to the economy if the minimum wage were to be raised. If minimum wage were to be raised a significant amount, businesses would be forced to raise their prices to make enough money to pay their employees more and stay in business. So the idea of raising minimum wage to eight or nine dollars is probably not going to happen anytime soon. However, I think raising minimum wage just fifty cents would make a big difference. Living in a big city like Chicago is very expensive. Gas prices are even worse in the city and even little things from stuff you would pick up at a convenience store to restaurants everything is a bit pricier and so I think it’s necessary that minimum wage in cities be a bit higher than elsewhere, otherwise it makes living nearly unbearable. Raising minimum wage just a few cents would make such a difference in so many homes but not throw off the entire economy. Minimum wage doesn’t change very often but prices continue to go up. Families struggle when their main source of income is a minimum wage job. This is sadly the case for many American families, while prices for necessities go up they continue to work their butt of at a low paying job. Taxes take away from the already low minimum wage leaving people with nearly nothing left of their paycheck after working really hard at their job. Minimum wage is not enough to pay the bills in today’s society. Not to mention specific cases were there are multiple medical bills to pay on top of insurance, money for food and house bills. It is understandable why changing the minimum wage is very controversial. It’s a touchy issue because by changing it too much we only add to the inflation problem today. However by raising it slightly were making for a more comfortable financial state for many families living on minimum wage incomes.
The minimum wage should be the same across the board for every state. The minimum wage should be $8.00 everywhere. The only problem with increasing minimum wage would be that the price of living goes up which is always a problem for the sake that things will be more expensive because more money is spent. Poverty would be less across the country, people wouldn’t have to works so hard during the day and not get any money for what they are doing. When people have families and they are working these long hours and not getting paid barely anything, they are missing out in family time. With increasing the minimum wage to $8.00 this allows some families to be at home more and be with their families so there could be a change with the next generation in the family. People will be much happier as well because there is an increase with the amount they are getting paid so they will be looking forward to working and knowing that they are getting more money for the hard labor they are doing. With the minimum wage increase the economy will have more people saving and spending money because they have that ability now. Everything will increase in price because the income is changing for people all around the world.
I do think that we should increase the minimum wage. The only stipulation would be that you have to regulate it so that it doesn’t put small businesses out of business. As a teenager I know what it’s like to work for minimum wage. I however had an extraordinary experience. I used to work for Bath and Body works as a seasonal employee (meaning that I worked only during the Thanksgiving and Christmas season). I worked for five months and made a grand total of $311. Granted I was only working three maybe four hours a night, but they would only schedule me two days a week and the rest I was on-call. I was also making an astounding $6.98 an hour. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed the experience, but it would have been nice to earn a little more spending money. This summer however I worked five days a week from 8:00- 4:30 earning $10.24 an hour. An increased national minimum wage would greatly affect our nation’s economy. It would cause the price of goods to increase in order to compensate for the increase in a business’s budget for the fiscal year and because the typical American household would have more disposable income. I would calculate a living wage by taking into consideration a person’s income, the size of their family, the city that they live in, and their average expenses in a month. I think Congress has been hesitant to institute a national minimum wage because it would cause inflation and in turn that would cause the value of the dollar to decrease. Congress may also be afraid that in increasing the price of goods to compensate, that consumers would be more reluctant to spend money on certain luxury items and gas would become so expensive that people would be unable to buy gas for their vehicles. I personally am against a standardized national minimum wage. the only reason being that it would cause everything to increase in value and I would not be able to afford anything and would continuously be broke.
At my age minimum wage has a big effect on my social life. Teenagers that have jobs would normally want minimum wage to be on the higher end. Personally, I think that the national minimum wage should be somewhere around $7.00 to $8.00 per hour. If you are earning minimum wage you are most likely performing a low end job. If you do not want to earn minimum wage then you should be going to college so that you can get a higher end job and earn a salary instead of minimum wage.
Minimum Wage does not even apply to everyone. Servers make $3.00 an hour sometimes. You have to be a full time worker to earn minimum wage so it would not really apply to most teenagers anyways. That is why I do not think that raising the minimum wage is that big of a deal.
Business owners will not be huge fans of raising minimum wage either. It means that they have to dish out more money from there would be profits. It would hurt businesses and those that are just barely scraping by would suffer a great deal. With that, I think that raising the minimum wage too much would hurt the economy because it would hurt the businesses which in turn would take a toll on the job market and the amount of money being put into our market based economy.
I think that congress has been so reluctant to change the minimum wage because they have advisors that tell them how it will affect the economy. Also, congress gets donations from businesses and therefore their decisions are influenced by different companies. Companies do not want their profits to be taken away from them so they persuade their congressmen to lobby against the raising of minimum wage. They would lose money out of it. No business owner would want to lose their profits. Furthermore, congressmen make a good deal of money for being in office. Minimum wage does not affect them so I would guess that it is often overlooked by congress; until someone brings it up to their congressmen and forces them to do something about it.
The minimum wage topic within the United States is a very heated topic. I believe we should not have a national minimum wage. This is because not all states and cities in the United States have the same price for goods and services. Say, in California someone wanted to buy milk, it would be much more expensive to buy it in California than Ohio. I believe that the Unites States should not have a national minimum wage due to the fact of the varying prices in states. I think all states should have their own minimum wage.
I believe the “living wage” should be calculated within the state that the person is living. This is because of the varying prices in the states of the United States. People live in different lifestyles, so their views of a “living wage” will vary.
Businesses are largely impacted by the minimum wage. Minimum wage can strongly affect a business’ financial situation. When the minimum wage increases, companies are forced to pay their workers more. This causes the company to spend more money on the employees’ salary, depending on how many employees the company has on minimum wage. The company may be forced to raise prices or fire employees.
The economy could be going down more if the minimum wage is increased again. The minimum wage would hurt many companies and cause their prices to rise. However, it also means that minimum wage workers will have more money to spend. The amount they make with the raise however may not be enough to cover the rising prices.
Congress is probably so reluctant to raise the minimum wage because they know that it would cause a major upset in the economy on a national and possibly international level. They also are aware that many states are raising the minimum wage as they see fit. Therefore, there is not too much of a problem with states not increasing the minimum wage with the inflation rate.
I am pretty biased when it comes to this topic of discussion. Because I get paid minimum wage, I would love if the national minimum wage were $10.50.
I think there needs to be a national minimum wage because if there weren’t one employers would be able to make up wages for their employees. Some employers would take advantage of not having a national minimum wage and set bad wages for their employees.
A living wage should be calculated based on what a person needs to make to not be living from paycheck-to-paycheck. A person needs to be able to start and keep up with having a solid savings, enough to pay bills, buy groceries, take care of children, and have a little money left over for emergency situations.
If employers were to raise their minimum wage their corporate would have to in turn raise the prices of merchandise and probably have to cut back on a lot of things the company would do for fun for their employees. Corporations would also have to think about how to raise wages without raising the tax on merchandise or effecting the employee benefits.
Right now I don’t know if raising the national minimum wage would be a good idea because the economy is in a bad place. Although if the economy isn’t effected poorly maybe raising the national minimum wage will stimulate people to want to buy more. I think Congress is so reluctant to raise the minimum wage right now because they have a lot of more important issues to worry about and because I think they want to make sure that the economy is stable first.
Many people such as the author of “Nickel and Dimed” and the star of the movie “Super Size Me” have proven that minimum wage as it is today is not sufficient. The minimum wage that people are being paid is not enough to survive on your own. I do not think that the entire country can have the same minimum wage because every state has its own economic status. Because of the varying economic state of each state in the US, there are different levels of minimum wage that can sufficiently support a person in every state. In order to truly be able to calculate minimum wage we should run test ask people to get a job with minimum wage and test to see if it is possible to get by with minimum wage. If minimum wage is raised their will be some negative effect for businesses across America. But if there are tests done in evry state to find out what their minimum wage could be. Then some states may go up some states may stay the same and some states could go down. So even if there are some states that go up there, hopefully will be a balance throughout the economy across America. Raising minimum wage is probably not on the priority list for the congressmen right now. I think that because this does not directly affect them it is not as big of an issue for them to worry about dealing with. Also because minimum wage can be changes through state legislature I think that the congressmen are leaving it to the individual states to deal with their own minimum wage instead of dealing with the entire united states minimum wage as a whole. This is because it is easier for the congressmen and it leaves them completely out of the equation. But personally for ohio I think that although 7.25$ is probably not sustainable for living I am ok with getting paid that much for my summer job as opposed to the old minimum wage.
Minimum wage is a very important, debated about topic in today’s society. I do believe that minimum wage should be raised because it is impossible for someone to support themselves on a minimum wage budget. Minimum wage is supposed to be the amount of money that is needed to provide food, shelter, and the ability to not be in debt. The current minimum wage in Ohio is 6.85$ an hour. I believe that the amount of the national minimum wage should be raised. There is no way families are able to support themselves on such a low income. It is sad how the minimum wage in our country still inhibits people from being able to financially stay afloat.
I think that it is sad that in a country that provides healthcare to people can work full time jobs and still not be able to physically support themselves. I believe that national minimum wage should be raised so that honest hard working families can stay afloat. If minimum wage is increased maybe so many people wouldn’t have to inquire about welfare. The cost of living in this country is higher than the minimum earning price. It is almost like this system is designed for people to fail.
I really don’t think that minimum wage will increased anytime soon due to the high debt our government is in, but it is something that needs to be addressed. The only real alternative to lower class families is to hope to work for an establishment with a union. This would make sure that the best interests of the workers are taken into consideration. I worked for a minimum wage salary this summer, and it didn’t really bother me much because I enjoyed where I worked. It was very disappointing at times to see the amount of money I received as a pay check for all of the hours I put in, but the amount of money wasn’t a big deal to me. I had zero financial responsibility besides my social life so the minimum wage issue wasn’t of concern to me. Overall the minimum wage needs to be raised in my opinion. It really should be the least amount of money you can earn but still be able to stay financially afloat.
If we had a national minimum wage it should be eight dollars. But i honestly do not even think we should have one. Each state has different taxs and living expenses. There is no reason for every state to be the same. In a state such as New York eight dollars would be worthless if you needed to pay living expenses and taxs. You caluculate a "living wage" by finding looking at the typlical cost for rent or owning a house as well as daily expenses. this is all key in making sure that someone is able to live off of. As a nation we should not want our citizens to have to live a hard life and struggle till the next pay check every month. If the minimum wages is raised businesses should all have to implacate it. There is no reason that any company should be exempt from having to change their pay to employees. If minimum wage were to be national then the ecomonmy would greatly improve. I feel as though less people would be on wellfair and more would be able to afford better housing and living conditions. Congress tends to be reluctant when the idea of raising minimum wage is arrised because of the fact that it in turn will harm the government it self. Plus that fact that most companies would complan about the fact that they no longer have the ability to set their own wages for its works.
As someone who has just recently quit a job that payed 65 cents higher than minimum wage, I can say that was some bullshit. the company doesnt give a damn about their employees. For 7.50 you bust your ass all day and still catch shit from your boss. its outrageous the things they have you do. i figure for the work i do now...people get payed much more to do it. I used to work for a construction comapany, i was payed 26 dollars an hour as a framer and roofer. Its very hard work but its worth it. I believe that the minimum wage should depend on the job. the more skilled you are at that job, the more you make.
Minimum wage is a big issue to discuss. I personally do not think minimum wage should be raised because that will make the cost of everything increase. Most people would say is a great thing to increase the minimum wage because they think that they would make a lot of money rather than they made before. If the workers get paid more, the prices of goods would go up.
The implications for businesses if they minimum wage is raised is, the businesses would have to raise the prices of their products and will pay more money to their employers. If the businesses can not afford to pay more money to their workers, they would definitely dismiss some of them and more people become unemployed.
If the minimum wage is raised, the economy would go down. The minimum wage would hurt many companies and cause their prices to increase and that would let people not spend a lot of money. That would affect the stock market and would decrease.
The congress has been reluctant to raise the minimum wage due to they are probably afraid that they will lose, cause inflation, and businesses will be reluctant to hire more people because they are paying more.
I do not think that raising the minimum wage will help everyone because the businesses will increase their goods. The economy will collapse because most people will not spend a lot of money to buy goods.
I strongly believe that this country should have a minimum wage. I think that it is very important that everyone can get paid at least a certain amount of money, no madder what the job is. It doesn’t matter if that job is working at McDonalds, working at a summer camp, or being a CEO of a fortune 500 company. Being a teenager, I am at the bottom of the “wage” ladder, this summer I worked at a sports camp for 1st thru 4th graders and a little above the Illinois state minimum wage, which I believe is a little bit above the national minimum wage.
Now in terms of a “living wage” one would count or calculate that has how much one person needs to make in order for that person to live. How much does one person need to make to be over the poverty level? How much does one need to make to be in the middle class? How much does a person need to make in order to be in wealth class?
Back to Minimum wage, if the national minimum wage was to be increased that could be damaging to business. Because if you have to pay your lowest employees you most likely would have to pay every employee hiring than those bottom workers more. In terms of the economy, I believe raising the minimum wage, would do nothing to hurt or help our economy. The reason why I think this is because when you raise the minimum rage, everything thing else will get raised. The cost of living in an apartment, cost of buying food, clothes etc. everything will get raised.
Now the question of why congress has been so reluctant to raise minimum wage? I believe it is because of the reason I have said above. Because if they raise the national average, then everything else in terms of the economy will be raised and I don’t think the congress really wants to do that.
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