Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Period: 6
12-20-17
being that raising Minimum Wages can affect lower-wage families that work hard. Families that
have low-wage workers that work hard will not make as much money as Minimum Wage
workers that work a steady normal job that can give them almost two times the wage than the
low-wage workers. Another reason being that raising Minimum Wages can affect families with
low-wage workers in another way. They can affect families by letting low-wage workers earn
less than minimum wage workers and also, now low-wage workers have less hours than before
to earn the wages they deserve. The final reason why I want Minimum Wage to be lower is
because the federal minimum has lost 9.6% of its purchasing power. So basically, the federal
minimum has lost 9.6% of its purchasing power (meaning losing money to buy company items
and other items) which is a huge percentage giving it to Minimum Wage workers.
My first claim, “Minimum Wages can affect lower-wage families that work hard”, is also
discussed by Cristina D. Romer. She’s explaining that minimum wages can affect other workers,
“Even if workers are getting competitive wage, many of us are deeply disturbed that some
hard-working families have very little.” Cristina D. Romer is saying that even if the workers’ are
getting the wages they want, it still doesn’t mean it’s fair for hard-working families to get less
than them. Its also not fair for hard-working workers from low-wage families to get lower than
minimum wage workers that do equal or less than they do, which supports my claim because
raising the Minimum Wage can and will affect other or lower-wage workers that work equal or
harder than the minimum wage workers but get less money.
My second claim, “Raising Minimum Wages can affect families with low-wage workers
by allowing low-wage workers earn less than minimum wage workers and also have less hours
than before to earn the wages they deserve”, is discussed by Ben Casselman. Ben explains that in
January of 2016, “Seattle’s Minimum Wage jumped from $11 to $13 an hour for large
employers, the second biggest increase in less than a year”. Ben states that Seattle’s Minimum
Wage is a big increase in less than a year. This causes big problems because it will create a steep
decline for low-wage workers, and less hours for the workers who kept their job, which supports
my claim because low-wage workers that kept their job have less hours to work now because of
the Minimum Wage increasing. This is terrible news to low-wage workers because when they
work harder than minimum wage workers, they don’t earn the same as them.
My third and final claim, “the federal minimum has lost 9.6% of its purchasing power”, is
discussed in a top 5 facts about Minimum Wage by Drew Desilver. Drew states that the
minimum wage increasing affects the purchasing power, in fact 9.6% of the federal purchasing
power. “The federal minimum has lost 9.6% of its purchasing power when they raised the
Minimum Wage to $8.68 (in 2016 dollars)”. Drew states here that the federal will lose its
purchasing power, which basically means the financial ability to purchase a product and/or
services, and it will become very unstable. This relates to my claim because the federal minimum
wage has lost 9.6% of their purchasing power which really affects multiple groups of people
work a minimum wage job. In the article “Raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would lift
wages for 41 million American workers” by David Cooper, he explains that “In 2016, the federal
minimum wage of $7.25 was worth 10 percent less than when it was raised in 2009, after
adjusting for inflation, and 25 percent below its peak value in 1968”. In this excerpt, he is
basically saying that in 2016, the federal minimum wage was 10 percent less than in 2009. This
is unfair because I believe that the year 2016 should have more than the previous federal
minimum wage increase and also this will also affect hard minimum wage workers that do
excess stuff than the average, similar to the hard low-wage workers that earn less. But, it still
doesn’t mean they need to take away a lot of money from low-wage workers for their own gain.
Coming back to my first claim, “Even if workers are getting competitive wage, many of us are
deeply disturbed that some hard-working families have very little”, this tells us that
hard-working families are still getting little if we raise the minimum wage so it doesn’t really
help.
Therefore, this issue is very crucial to people who work a minimum wage and low-wage
jobs because it can affect both groups. I believe, lowering the minimum wage to an agreeable
pay would thoroughly effect both groups, either very positive or just negative. Balancing those
two would help their families out and also have a very reasonable work time, not just minimum
wage workers. Lowering the minimum wage to a reasonable amount would very help low-wage
workers and also the federal minimum because from my first claim, explaining how minimum
wages can affect low-wage workers, my second claim, low-wage workers have less hours to
work to make up those missing pays, and third claim, federal minimum losing 9.6% of
purchasing power, all of those will be solved if the minimum wage pay is lowered. Finally,
Minimum Wage should be lowered because it can affect low-wage workers, but it should be
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Title: “Raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would lift wages for 41 million American
workers
Link: http://www.epi.org/publication/15-by-2024-would-lift-wages-for-41-million/
Date: April 26, 2017
Author: David Cooper
Summary: “The minimum wage is also a mechanism for combating inequality. As increased
productivity has translated into higher wages for high-wage workers, a rising minimum wage
ensures that the lowest-paid jobs also benefit from these improvements. This is the essence of the
“fairness” implied in the name of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the act that established the
minimum wage.”