Raising Minimum Wage Research Paper

Unit 6: Raising Minimum Wage
N’Joa Edwin
Kaplan University

Minimum wage is a serious issue in America. Many people such as president Obama has made raising the minimum wage a priority. President Obama claims it would increase earnings for millions of workers and boost the bottom lines of businesses across the country. Raising minimum wage was the core of the president campaign against “income equality.” Evidence suggests that raising minimum wage would do little to reduce poverty or inequality. Some say minimum wages increases tend to reduce employment increase job turnover discourage part time work and reduce school attendance, meanwhile increasing the minimum wage will lift wages for 28 million Americans, and grow the economy
for everyone. Raising minimum wage would improve the United States by building a better economy rather than an economy with an increase in poverty and inequality.
Raising minimum wage indeed has many factors such as reducing poverty and inequality.
Today, the real value of the minimum wage has fallen by nearly one-third since its peak in 1968. And right now, a full-time minimum wage worker makes $14,500 a year, which leaves too many families struggling to make ends meet.There are many states that have already approved minimum wage increase through ballot measures in 2014 election. Raising the minimum wage would raise the incomes of 28 million Americans. Therefore women would particularly benefit because they tend to work for lower wages than men. “88% of adults with more than a third over age forty work for minimum wage.” (Van Buren, 2014) Many breadwinners are working for minimum wage and it isn’t enough to support the household therefore raising minimum wage would help many struggling Americans whether full time or part time. Raising the minimum wage is an important anti-poverty tool, but the current minimum wage leaves too many families in
poverty.
Nevertheless a $10.10 wage could, over the course of a year, help a full-time, full-year minimum-wage worker in Arizona afford either 4 months of rent, 24 weeks of groceries, 68 tanks of gas, or the equivalent of 31 months of electricity. If only 10.10 can help out one minimum wage worker imagine how many Americans in the United States can have better lives. By boosting pay in the low-wage jobs on which more families are relying than ever, a stronger minimum wage will help restore the consumer spending that powers our economy and that local businesses need in order to grow. A robust minimum wage is a key building block of sustainable economic recovery. Main factors that also help the economy are getting more people off of food stamp and other government programs.
Furthermore raising minimum wage is very beneficial to our economy. “As our economy has become increasingly directed toward Wall Street and the so-called FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) sectors, more wealth has migrated to the top 1 percent. On top of that, real wages have increasingly lagged behind the growth in productivity. It is also clear that hours worked and persons employed in the “productive” sector have been in decline over the last few decades. Today, high incomes come from the financial sector capturing an increasing share of national income and using it to shuffle financial assets in the financial markets casino which adds about zero to productive output.”(Auerback, 2012)
However minimum wage is not the main trophy against fighting poverty. “Any effort to reduce poverty and increase economic mobility at the bottom rungs of the income ladder into the middle class needs to include an increase in the minimum wage. In the largest economy on the planet, we need to work harder to reduce poverty. Increasing the minimum wage needs to be part of that effort.” (Boushey, 2014) She feels that the anti-poverty effects of the minimum wage are significant, but to pull workers and their families up and out of poverty, the minimum wage must work in tandem with income support policies. One of the most important policy interactions is with the Earned Income Tax Credit. The EITC is a refundable tax credit for low-income families that is larger for those with more dependent children. The EITC is an effective anti-poverty policy that lifts millions of Americans out of poverty. In 2012, the EITC lifted 6.5 million people out of poverty, according to the Center Budget and Policy Priorities.
Raising the minimum wage has many factors but the good outweighs the bad.
Many families are struggling in America and raising the minimum wage would help many people. Starting 2014 many states began raising minimum wage hopefully all 50 states can raise the minimum wage to the amount necessary. Raising minimum wage would improve the United States by building a better economy rather than an economy with an increase in poverty and inequality.

References
Auerback, M. (2012, July 24). Top 5 Reasons Why Raising the Minimum Wage Is Good for You and Me. AlterNet. Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/economy/top-5-reasons-why-raising-minimum-wage-good-you-and-me?page=0%2C0
Boushey, H. (2014, March 12). Understanding how raising the federal minimum wage affects income inequality and economic growth. Equitable Growth. Retrieved from http://equitablegrowth.org/research/understanding-the-minimum-wage-and-income-inequality-and-economic-growth/
Van Buren, P. (2014, August 27). Arguments Against Raising Minimum Wage Don’t Hold Upp. Huffington Post. Retrieved from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-van-buren/arguments-against-raising_b_5719035.html