Raising Minimum Wage Essay

Fighting Poverty
Poverty has caused depression, starvation, and disease. Would raising minimum wages help eliminate this cause of American deaths? Minimum wage is the least amount of money someone can receive for their labor. Facts from research show that it is possible to decrease the amount of people in poverty by raising minimum wage, however, raising minimum wage without raising inflation would hurt businesses because they would be losing money. Instead of raising the amount workers get paid, the government could limit to how much the wealthy man can earn. Raising minimum is not a reasonable solution to poverty.
A solution to one problem will only result in another problem. Business owners will not be able to keep the same amount of employees and increase the minimum wage. A quote from an article called “Federal Minimum Wage” states, “Setting a minimum wage, they maintain, makes it harder for unskilled workers to find jobs, because employers are forced to pay them more than their work is worth.” (Federal Minimum Wage) Not only will their be less jobs open for those in poverty, a raise in minimum wage will take jobs from those currently working. The

Low-wage workers and other employees support a raise in minimum wage. An article by Barbara Mantel states, “Supporters of an increase say raising the minimum would cause minimal job loss while putting money into the hands of low-wage workers who would spend it, boosting the economy.”(Mantel, Barbara) The money a business pays an employee may be going back into the economy, however, the money doesn’t necessarily go back to the business. Businesses need a profit to pay for their supplies and necessities within their building, however, raising minimum wage will decrease that business’s profit, therefore, limiting them to how much supplies they can use. Minimum wage increasing will have a negative impact on the