President Obama is making a large push to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour. He is pushing for this increase to try and reduce the income gap for low income Americans. Obama said "Even with the tax relief we’ve put in place, a family with two kids that
earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong."He states that as the richest country in the world people living in poverty is unacceptable. I agree that no one should live in poverty in the United States. I do however question the fact that this increase will not effect the hiring of small business's. It is hard to believe that a small business that operates at a very small profit will be able to take the $1.75 hit per minimum wage worker. It is a good idea to prevent citizens from living in poverty, I just don't believe that this won't change hiring practices.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
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Well, you have to start at some point. If we raise the minimum wage now, it will seem normal in the later years. I do understand that small businesses may have problems with this, but maybe there is some way that the government can help them. I also tam thinking other people have different views on this, such as older and idle-aged people which needs to be taken into consideration more than what an 18 year-old has to say, but coming from someone who does get minimum wage, this would probably be a great idea.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Seamus; that was the first thing I thought of when I heard the news of Obama wanting to raise the minimum wage. Small businesses are having enough trouble supporting their work force, so with them barely making it by now who in the world thinks that they'll be able to pay all their workers now $9 an hour? People may see the wage gap as in issue, but raising the minimum wage and thus forcing businesses to lay off workers who at least would have been taking home some salary is just going to exacerbate the problem. As for Aubrey's point about the government helping them: we're pretty far in debt as of right now. Not too sure we have much money to help struggling small businesses pay their workers the proposed new minimum wage. Plus we have larger problems on our plate.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is not with the people working for small businesses. Many if not most people who work for small businesses make more than minimum wage. This is to protect the full time workers at large corporations like Walmart, McDonald's, etc. This definitely will help the middle class. Whenever the minimum wage has increased in the past. The cost of living has been going up for decades, so why shouldn't the minimum wage.
ReplyDeleteI think people will be more susceptible to being laid off if the minimum wage increases. The raise is just too drastic and large companies would rather see their lay off some of their lower-level employees and make the remaining workers do more work than pay everyone more money for the same amount of work. I think it is unacceptable for people in this country to live in poverty and a rise in minimum wage could be the answer, but a raise this sudden could actually harm the lower class American.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see most of the people protesting this minimum wage increase try to survive at $7.25 an hour. But the others here have a point. People would be laid off and put on the streets. I'd prefer if the government supplemented people's existing wages so they could cope with the cost of living instead.
ReplyDeleteThis may sound great for workers now, but we also have to realize that businesses, mainly small businesses will lay fire more employees due to the rise of minimum wage. The more people that get laid off means more people in poverty, on the streets. I would much rather get paid less than not being paid at all.
ReplyDeleteThis proposal has both ups and downs. Being a minimum wage worker myself I would love to get paid more, but I can also see from the business owners' perspective. I think $9.00 an hour is too much given the current state of the economy. While some people would have more money to spend, there would also be much fewer positions available and lay-offs would be much more frequent which would actually kind of cancel out the desired effect. I feel that bumping it up to somewhere around $8.00 is reasonable, but any more would be more detrimental than helpful.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Brian that maybe a not as drastic increase would be a better solution but I am still very scared to see the repurcusions that this would have on small business. The closing line to the article about the CEOs being paid nothing close to minimum wage really got to me because the CEOs of these companies could honestly change the living standards of many Americans if they changed and took a smaller paycheck.
ReplyDeleteLike others said, it is a good idea to increase the minimum wage. Although this would help the people who are in poverty, it does have a negative side to it. Increasing the wage by $1.75 would have a huge impact on small business, which may not be the best thing. The idea is good but there are also some draw backs that we don't need right now. Also unemployment might go up if this happens, which is defiantly not what we want right now.
ReplyDelete