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Argumentative Essay: Poverty And Raising Minimum Wage

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Argumentative Essay: Poverty And Raising Minimum Wage
Hank Beasley
Composition 1
Mr. De La Garza
8 October 2013
Poverty and Raising the Minimum Wage
Poverty is a huge issue in America; in spite of, what is the correct way to fix this issue? Will raising the minimum wage relieve the poor making the economy stronger or will it do the opposite? The issue at hand is discussed through two articles supporting the increased minimum wage, and two articles against it. The pro side of the issue is discussed through the articles, “Fast Food, Low Pay” by Mark Bittman, and “Raise That Wage” by Paul Krugman while the two articles supporting the con side are, “The Minimum Wage Debate” by Kevin A. Hasset, and Michael Strain, and “Raising Minimum Wage Hurts Those it Claims to Help” by Ellen Sauerbrey. …show more content…
Since most of the people earning the minimum wage are younger adults and teenagers then this means an increase in wages would create job losses for the young people of America (3). This would happen due to the companies having to justify paying a young unskilled worker higher wages when the company could easily get someone more qualified (Sauerbrey 4). With unemployment rates as high as 43% for African American teenagers, and 22% for white teenagers the con side believes that raising the minimum wage will only make these numbers higher; which in sense narrows the chances even more of young Americans gaining work experience. While the con side wants to decrease poverty they are not okay with jeopardizing the jobs of the unskilled and young which leads the next topic to be about the earned income tax credits.
Krugman of the Pro side believes that raising the minimum wage will solve the problems of earned-income tax credit. Krugman states that earned-income tax credit is a good policy but it has a few problems that benefit the employers more than the workers (2). However, raising the minimum wage would help this problem with the tax credit because according to Krugman the two policies are actually complements of each other meaning a raise in minimum wage would even out the tax credit issues resulting in even more money for the
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