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Minimum Wage

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Minimum Wage
Minimum wage is defined as the lowest possible income that an employer can legally pay an employee. This ensures that all people are fairly paid and not defrauded by companies or businesses. Minimum wage is now a staple in 90 percent of countries in the world (Minimum). Even with these minimums, a person’s lifestyle is hard to maintain. Sustainability, in my opinion, is the ability to keep or maintain a certain amount of physical or mental property. In this light of sustainability, minimum wage is not a sustainable amount of money in which to survive with a basic quality of life. There are many supporters and objectors to the minimum wage debate. Supporters say that increasing minimum wage increases the workers earning power and wages. Objectors say that increasing minimum wage only leads to unemployment due to small companies’ inability to pay workers. Also the increased inflation rate of goods only hurts the economy, which leads to many jobs being lost, mainly the jobs held by minimum wage patrons. Although this is a heated debate there is one thing to which both sides agree; something needs to be implemented so that workers are not exploited by businesses. Economists are exploring the viability of minimum wage, the standard minimum wage payments, and if there is anything we can do to keep the world on an equal playing field. There are many thoughts and opinions on minimum wage. Minimum wage was put into practice to keep businesses from taking advantage of the “small people.” Most of the workforce making minimum wage is “young adults” because companies feel that they can take advantage of them. The main reason that businesses exploit these workers is because many of these people have not entered or finished college. Of the total affected workers, 81% are adults. Of these 81% adults, 63% are women and 37% are men. This shows that companies still have gender discrimination in the workplace. Companies are not only paying people ridiculously small amounts of money


Cited: Allen, Jodie T. Negative Income Tax. Library of Economics and Liberty. 01 Nov. 2011. Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: on (not) Getting by in America. New York: Metropolitan, 2001. Print. "Inflation" Investment and Financial Dictionary by InvestorWords.com. Web. 01 Nov. 2011. . Montgomery, Sandy. "Inflation Hits Low-Paid Staff." LexisNexis. Web. 01 Nov. 2011. Morgan, Spurlock. "30 Days." 30 Days. FX. FX Networks, 15 June 2005. Television. The U.S. Department of Labor. Web. 01 Nov. 2011. .
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