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Emiree Lang
Professor Baird
English 1010-63
4/1/14
Annotated Bibliography

The purpose of this bibliography is to discover more about the topic of Minimum Wage. There is
a bill going around congress that proposes to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to
$10.25 an hour. Some support this while others strongly disagree. I only know a small amount about
this topic from what I have gathered from news and talking to friends, but would like to learn more. My
objective for writing this bibliography is to discover more about both sides of the argument and develop
my own opinion of the matter. I want to answer the question; should the federal government increase
minimum wage? I am a Business major and thought this would be an interesting topic to research
because it is a topic that I often hear people discuss and the discussion are usually very passionate.
People seem to either be strongly in support of it or strongly against it. One thing I do know is that the
economy effects every person living in society and minimum wage have a large influence on our
economy.

Barack Obama. It is Time to Raise the Minimum Wage. Salt Lake Tribune: The opinion pages Room for
debate. 1 April. 2014. Web. 1 April. 2014.

This article was written by our president Barack Obama. Obama supports the wage increase. He
discusses his desire for higher federal minimum wage and urges employers to start paying their
employees more money. The main point behind his argument is that people who work full- time have
the right to live above the poverty line. He stresses the fact that the majority of people that make
minimum wage are not just teenagers or college students, but that the average person is thirty five
years old.
I believe Obama is a credible source because he is the President of the United States and has
been voted into his position. I believe that his speech will be convincing to some because he instills a
sense of pride which makes us feel like a higher minimum wage is our right as Americans. However, I do
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realize that for political reasons many may disagree that his statements are credible. I liked the way this
speech was presented because it was easy to follow and understand. He speaks in a firm but comforting
tone.
He touched on many different aspects of minimum wage, but I wish he would have been more
detailed and not so broad. After reading this speech my opinions on the topic have stayed the same.
This was a good starting point for my research because it summed up the current issues, but I still need
more information to write a solid paper. I would like to go into more depth about minimum wage from
an economic view point. I liked how this speech was written recently because I can use it as a timeline of
changes happening in the last year.

David Cooper. Raising the Federal Minimum Wage to $10.10 would lift wages for millions and provide a
modest economic boost. Economic Policy Institute: Research for a shared prosperity. 2 April.
2014. Web. 19 December. 2013.

In this article Cooper gives great detail about minimum wage and its effects on all different
groups in the economy. He supports the wage increase by stressing the fact that minimum wage has not
fallen due to lack of advancement or technology. He goes on to explain how productivity in the U.S has
increased by fifty percent and the minimum wage has not been increased at the same rate if it had, the
minimum wage would currently sit at $18.30 an hour. He also points out the problem that people
working full-time year- round do not earn enough to sit above the federal poverty line.
Cooper joined the Economic Policy Institute in July 2011 and specializes in the areas of
unemployment, poverty, and minimum wage. From this information I can make the assumption that this
article is a very credible resource. It is convincing because it is a statistical analysis of the economy and
its current and previous state regarding minimum wage. Cooper is speaking to his reader in an
informative tone and supports his claim by including several analytical graphs of the effects of minimum
wage on gender, age, hours, and family income.
After reading this my views have greatly expanded. It gave me a wider view of the economy and
how minimum wage effects it. It supports the idea that the current minimum wage is not working for
the middle class like it should. Cooper stresses the fact that minimum wage workers are not just young
people working their first jobs, just like Obama said. He goes on to mention that one-fourth of them
have children, therefor making the idea of increasing minimum wage even more important.

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Diana- Furchgott- Roth. Make it easier to create jobs. New York Times: Opinion pages Room for
Debate. 5 March. 2014. Web. 4 December 2013.
In this article Roth discusses the struggles in the economy but does not believe that raising the
minimum wage is the answer to the problem. She believes that low- wage workers need more job
opportunities, not a wage increase. Her argument is that if more jobs are created the demand for labor
will go up and as a result of this there will be more opportunities for employees to move ahead in
companies and gain better paying positions. She has three ideas of ways to accomplish this; fix Obama
Care, lower taxes, and streamline government regulations.
Diana-Furchgott-Roth is the former Chief Economist of the U.S Department of Labor. Knowing
this I can conclude that she is knowledgeable in different aspects of the economy and is a credible and
peer reviewed source. This article was very short and read like list which made it hard to follow.
Although though she has good ideas she did not go into much detail about them therefor, her argument
did not convince me. She also gave no evidence or conclusion to her claims.
I liked how this article showed another viewpoint, particularly in comparison to Obamas
speech. It made me realize that raising the minimum wage may just be one of many tools needed to
repair the economy.
Jeanne Sahadi. Raising the minimum wage would ease poverty but cost some jobs. CNN Money.
Business News. 4 April. 2014. Web. 18 February. 2014.
This article discusses minimum wage and its effects on the economy. Sahadi discusses both sides of the
argument. She begins by saying that if the minimum wage was increased to the proposed $10.10 an
hour it would boost the income of most low wage workers and lift 900,000 people out of poverty. She
goes on to give information from the opposing side by stating that raising the minimum wage could
create job loss due to the fact that employers payroll costs increase and to compensate for that cost
some employers may cut jobs or decrease hours.
CNN money is the worlds largest business website and is home to Fortune Magazine and Money
Magazine. I would say that this is a good place to get information on many different positions regarding
minimum wage. This article was different from the others I have read so far because it gave detailed
information on both sides of the argument. It was easy to follow because she makes a statement and
then directly after she provides supporting evidence. I dont believe her motive was to persuade the
reader to pick one side or the other. She gave us adequate information on both sides giving the reader
the opportunity to decide for themselves.
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This information is vital to my project because it provides information on the views of some that
disagree with raising the minimum wage. I need to include supporting evidence from both sides in order
to write a full, non-objective paper. She includes statistical graphs just as Cooper did. She also makes the
point that raising the minimum wage puts money into the hands of people who are more likely to put it
back into the economy just as Obama and Cooper did.



The Editorial Board. The case for a higher minimum wage. Economic Policy Institute. 3 April. 2014.
Web. 8 February, 2014.
This article supports the increase of minimum wage. The main point is to show that the
opposing views against it are wrong and not supported by facts as the benefits of the increase are. It
mentions the argument that increase in wages will kill jobs and hurt consumers and states that there is
no evidence that supports negative effects of a wage increase. This article also gave a bit of history
about the origination of minimum wage and suggests that it was put in place to protect workers from
poverty. This article stood out to me because it includes and interactive feature that calculates
individuals specific cost of living in regards to minimum wage by state. For example; a reader can go in
and enter their housings costs, food costs, bills, exedra and the calculator will tell you if you are able to
survive in your state if you currently earn minimum wage. This can be used as a strong tool to support
the increase of minimum wage.
The Economic Policy Institute is a peer reviewed source. This article was convincing because it
discusses the effects of minimum wage on a macroeconomic level while also providing information on a
microeconomic level. This gave me a wider view of this issue as a whole. The facts stated are supported
by many statistical analysis done over the last twenty years.
This article has made my own opinions grow stronger. After I went in and entered my
information into the interactive calculator I realized that living with an income relative to minimum
wage was nearly impossible. Before I had even began to enter my food expenses the calculator told me
that I would have to take out debt of $2,000 dollars in order to pay for all of my expenses in a year. This
left me very frustrated and made me wonder how families with children survive on minimum wage
because Im a single person and I can hardly survive.
The position of this article is relative to many I have been analyzing by again reinforcing the
common misconception that the average minimum wage workers are a teenagers working their first
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jobs. It also touches on similar opinions that were written in Jeanne Sahadis article relating to the idea
that minimum wage could create job loss, but does not support it.
In closing this bibliography I have gathered information on both sides of the argument. From my
careful analysis of these articles I have concluded that , yes indeed the increase of federal minimum
wage to $10.10 per hour would be extremely beneficial to the economy more so than it would be
harmful. Due to the fact that I found little evidence supporting the opposing views I can also conclude
that the real debate on this issue may be more political than economical, although I will still search for
more information on the opposing parties stand.