$7.25 Today, $10.10 Tomorrow | Teen Ink

$7.25 Today, $10.10 Tomorrow

February 26, 2014
By Emma Samuelson BRONZE, Cannon Falls, Minnesota
Emma Samuelson BRONZE, Cannon Falls, Minnesota
3 articles 0 photos 0 comments

While it is very unlikely that the bill on minimum wage will pass, it would have a major impact on Americans in the country. According to a New York Times article, written by the Editorial Board, roughly 27.8 million people would have a pay raise. Some reasons why this bill should be passed are that Obama wants to try and get this bill up and running in 2016 and many Democrats support this bill. Another reason is that the people trying to live on minimum wage are sometimes struggling to make ends meet. This bill will also end up impacting our economy and businesses whether its good or bad.

The first topic is that raising the minimum wage will be an effort to build momentum for a wage hike for all Americans. president Obama stated this at the Union Address. This means that the government is trying to encourage Americans to keep on working and not to give up on their main goals in life. The Democratic plan would be to increase the overall federal wages to $10.10 over three years. Then indexing it to inflation, while also raising the minimum wage for tipped workers, said an official reported by Fox news. “It raises incomes and reduces poverty,” Jason Furman, Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers stated. A million individuals will end up being lifted out of poverty said an NPR journalist. In my opinion the government wanted to pass this bill because it would put more money into middle-class individual’s pockets and it would also improve the community. But to some states and cities they disagree. Already, 21 states and multiple cities oppose this bill.

Now moving on to the impact of minimum wage for Americans: In the articles that I have read it sounds like life with minimum wage is pretty tricky. For example a McDonald's worker who was interviewed by Forbes magazine on 7/9/2013 says that she earns $400-600 a month and on average American’s income per month is $3,557.75 says a Times magazine editor. To me I think life on minimum wage would be hard to manage because of the low pay that people would get when they are working as hard as they can. The McDonald's worker also made it very clear that you have to be sure to keep track of your money and never over spend. To me this would be a big change because right now I buy anything that appeals to me, but with life on minimum wage I would have to hold back on that. Another fact is that the average American’s wage would be $20.39 per hour from New York times editorial board the case for higher minimum wage.

The real question is what would this bill do to our economy and our businesses? Even though it would help people working for businesses there is also a downside to raising the minimum wage. This down side is that even though there is evidence that it will help businesses and no job loss will be involved this evidence, however, does not stop conservatives from making the argument that by raising the cost of lobar, a higher minimum wage will hurt businesses, leading them to cut jobs and harming the low-wage workers it is intended to help. It is said that this bill will boost pay checks and cut more jobs this is from a recently posted article from NPR. The current number of jobs to be cut would be 500,00. This was stated by a New York Times article written by the editorial board called “The Case for Higher Minimum Wage.”

What it will do to our economy? I think from all the articles I have read that it won't do anything bad to the economy it will only improve it. My reason for this is that when the wages rise people will have more money to buy things and the money will go right back into our economy. This money will improve the economy because consumers will have more spending money on buying products. The wage boost would allow millions of workers to spend more, boosting demand for goods and services and stimulating growth.- Marilyn Geewax of NPR.
To sum up all of this the minimum wage bill will be good overall for our economy, businesses, and the people affected by minimum wage. Some parts of the bill may be a bad impact on some things like for example businesses but the bill will mostly help. I like this bill because it would help out many hard working Americans. This bill states that by 2016 the minimum wage will change from $7.25 to $10.10. I hope that instead of it being 2016 the bill will be passed tomorrow.


The author's comments:
Something that inspired me to write this essay is because I don't involve myself in politics very often, but with this piece I got to learn some new stuff about the president and other government related things.

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