The US federal minimum wage has been a hot topic in 2013, starting with President Obama’s proposal in February to increase the federal minimum wage to $9/hour. Then, over the summer, McDonald’s was the source for national ridicule after releasing a financial planning document for its workforce that suggested employees would need to work two full-time entry level jobs in order to pay for basic monthly expenses. Most recently, thousands of fast food workers from across the nation went on strike to increase the federal minimum wage to $15/hour. Is living on a minimum wage income really that tough? And if it is, why is it so difficult to simply increase it?
In most cases, living off a minimum wage income is simply not feasible, especially for single parents.
- Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein, 1997. Making ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work. New York:Russell Sage Foundation.
Much of the reluctance to increase the minimum wage stems from the fear that higher wages would force companies to raise prices and hire fewer employees. However, these anxieties are largely unfounded.
- Lawrence F. Katz and Alan B. Kreuger, 1992. “The effect of minimum wage on the fast food industry”
Comments 2
Marty — November 1, 2013
Seriously? Is this the whole article? So here's the thing, we can't pay everyone 50$ an hour just because we feel sorry for them and want them to have lots of money that screws with the economy and makes money less valuable and fewer people employed. People who earn minimum wage have no skills which is why they earn that little. If they had skills they could go somewhere else and get a job that paid more. Working at mcdonalds is a job that requires little to no skill, proof is that young teenagers can do it having no work experience prior. So saying that a job that requires no skill should pay as much as jobs that require a great deal more skill or even a degree is a little ridiculous.
People shouldn't be living off of minimum wage, that's not what it's for. I think the biggest travesty is of course that mothers are rarely hired for good jobs and are more often discriminated against and more needs to be done on this front - that's where the problem solving needs to go. Raising the minimum wage actually doesn't solve anything...it will force businesses to fire employees with no skills and raise prices on their products. So...yea...
Stephen Suh — November 1, 2013
Thanks for your comment, Marty. I would suggest taking a glance through the above references; they provide some intriguing critiques to some of the points you raised. They should both be available to read for free (or at least excerpts from it in the case of the book). I agree wholeheartedly with your claim that people shouldn't be living off of the minimum wage. In an ideal world, people would be well educated and have unfettered access to economic betterment. Unfortunately, in an economy where job opportunities and upward mobility are not necessarily abundant, some individuals have little choice BUT to work jobs paying the minimum wage. You should also take into account that the type of environment one is raised in plays huge dividends in the type of opportunities one has as an adult. Some people simply do not have access to well paying jobs, or access to the training required to be eligible for those jobs.