state minimum wages that vary across the country.
For example: Georgia’s minimum wage is $5.15, while Florida’s minimum wage is $2.50 higher at $8.05.
Within the American public, there is an ongoing debate on whether or not the government should increase minimum wage to $15/hr. This topic is constantly conversed because minimum wage has the possibility of raised wages and reduce poverty. Minimizing the gap between the rich and the poor and building a strong middle class is what most of the public desire from the government. Primarily, minimum wage was proposed to protect employees from cruel work practices and to have fair pay. Presently, the purpose of minimum wage is to help workers, particularly those with families, become more self-reliant.
Various individuals have weighed on the issue. These individuals are majorly on neutral grounds showing the positive or negative effects of a minimum wage increase for workers. Out of the six sources, Lopresti and Mumford’s “Who Benefits from a Minimum Wage Increase?” was one of the articles take sides on the argument. The authors state that: even though most believe that minimum wage increases would help low wage workers, they are negatively impacted as a result. In other words, Lopresti and Mumford believe that the
sudden increase could limit the growth for an individual in the labor force. The evidence the authors use is Current Population Surveys (CPS) from years 2005 to 2008, a point in time when there were numerous U.S. state-level minimum wage increases. Like Lopresti and Mumford, Hoffman uses the same form of data to back his claim. Though, Hoffman is using the data to point out the faults in a previous analysis done by the authors Sabia, Burkhauser, and Hansen. S. D. Hoffman reexamined their work believing that the CPS is more accurate. The previous authors in “Are the Effects of Minimum Wage Increases Always Small?” claimed that the effects of minimum wage had quite an impact on the economy. Hoffman disagrees with the previous authors by showing that minimum wage had minimal impact on the economy. Similar to Hoffman, Rosenburg discusses how the economy would react to minimum wage. Rosenburg goes further into the argument by showing how businesses could be effected like the workers unlike the other article, “Who Benefits from a Minimum Wage Increase?”. In Rosenburg’s piece, the claim stated is that the businesses effected by the minimum wage will adapt. Local businesses were used as insight to support the argument. The businesses initially raised the costs getting complaints as a result. Yet, customers slowly became accepting to the raising price. Therefore, businesses will not be negatively impacted after some time. In a like manner, McCarthy expresses the apprehension of raising minimum wage. Though Kimbra McCarthy is not clearly taking sides, she states that they should prepare to approach the point of higher minimum wage. Not to mention, she explains the government efforts into keeping the economy stable. In the editorial, “$15 Minimum Wage has Pros and Cons.”, the anonymous writer is weighing the pros and cons of raising minimum wage to $15. Similar to Lopresti and Mumford’s argument, the writer states that minimum wage puts a limitation on workers. These limitations, like less hours, does hurt the worker in a major way.
All-in-all, the authors worry about the stability of the economy. The only disagreement is will the rise of minimum wage disturb the economy. One small change in the economy could cause a chain reaction and could potentially harm or boost the economy. Within all of the articles, inflation is often the main concern. Those who agree believe that minimum wage should match inflation. On the other hand, those disagree share the views that minimum wage could be a potential factor of inflation. The articles use factual evidence to persuade the readers, but the results contradict each other.