Persuasive Essay: The Minimum Wage Struggle

Mike Durant once said, “Making it more expensive to create new jobs is a perfect way to guarantee fewer of them.” The recent, “Raise the Wage” campaigns have sparked an interest in many low-wage workers, however those who support this initiative are unaware of the economic problems that will arise if this is successful. Several cities have already raised their minimum wages and some, like Seattle, are raising it as high as $15 per hour. Currently, supporters of this campaign argue that this raise should be implemented federally. However, doing so will have broad and negative financial implications. Ever since the Great Depression, the minimum wage has been in effect — in order to reduce poverty and solidify that employees are paid a reasonable sum. Although the minimum wage can be beneficial and advantageous for individuals and to our economy as a whole, it can also be detrimental to our nation’s finances. The federal government should not allow this to pass, but rather they should increase the citizens’ knowledge of the pernicious consequences and complications that will arise with a higher minimum wage, especially one as high as $15 per hour. Some of the resulting conflicts that will occur if this possible raise in the federal minimum wage takes effect are: job loss, business failure, higher consumer prices, and a lower demand for uneducated employees. Although it may appear as if increasing the federal minimum wage will help to lift families out of poverty, in

Looking at society as a whole with individual units that work together to make society function efficiently is the structural functionalism concept. Each unit has a part and is describe as institutions such as family, religion, education, politics, economy and inequality. Because structural functionalism looks at social structure and patterns of behavior it is able to create values for society. As well as, distinguish between visible and suppressed problems within the social structures that may need to be addressed. For instance, homelessness is indication of dysfunction in structural functionalism system.

Homelessness, while widely acknowledged, continues to be an ever-prevalent issue within society. This urged me to take action. In order to compromise an accurate, precise claim, I needed to heavily research and analyze the various aspects of this issue -- specifically regarding the causes of homelessness, addressing the stereotypes and stigmas surrounding it, and by finding solutions at a personal, local, and national level. Initially, I intended to include pathos as a primary theme throughout my sources, but I eventually found logos as a more prevalent, more central theme that appeared throughout each source. Presented primarily through statistics, logos stands as the central theme.

A minimum wage increase from “$7.25 to $10.10 would result in a loss of 500,000 jobs”. ("The Effects of Minimum-Wage Increase on Employment and Family Income”) This claim is better because it shows how raising the minimum wage will decrease job growth instead of increasing it. But, the minimum wage should be increased because increasing will also increase economic activity and spur job growth, decrease poverty, and improvements in productivity and economic growth have outpaced increases in the minimum

While circumstances can vary, an individual’s first choice is rarely to choose homelessness due to the inability to afford housing or other unforeseen circumstances. The support of friends, family, and community programs/shelters are first suggestions when a person becomes displaced. When these suggestions become inadequate, living on the streets is the next favorable/affordable option. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, on a night in January of 2015, there were 564,708 people homeless in the United States (para 3). On a larger scale, more than one million people are homeless in America and of that population, 50 percent are chronically addicted to alcohol, drugs, or both (Substance abuse mental health, 2011 para 6). Research has brought more attention to risk factors that contribute to homelessness such as the epidemic of substance abuse.

According to the National Coalition for the Homelessness, approximately 3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year. Over 500,000 people were recorded homeless in the United States in 2015. In just our 5 months into 2016, we have already doubled that number. There 's now well over 100 million homeless people in the US. Roughly 300,000 of those people are children. Homelessness alters people 's lives in many ways. It is an epidemic that is beginning to spread into the industrialized countries. “The world of the homeless is a tough and interesting world.” says actor Paul Dano.

The issue of homelessness in America has been evident since the early 1600’s. Across the country men, women and children spend their nights on the streets not knowing when or if they will ever find a permanent home. States and federal officials or city councils have tried to alleviate or at least reduce the number of homeless over the last several decades at a city, state or national level but it continues to be an ongoing problem. There is a multitude of factors that account for the growing homeless population that affects each state in the country differently. Though there are many contributing factors that contribute to the amount of people living on the street at any given night in the U.S. An effective way to address the problem of homelessness in America is to continue creating affordable housing, maintaining assistance programs, and continue creating workforce

The cost of living is a difficult situation that many Americans across the country struggle with today. A heated debate that directly impacts the lives of all citizens is whether or not the price of minimum wage should be increased. Minimum wage is the standard amount of money earned for executing a basic skill job. Some people hold strong beliefs on why enlarging minimum wage is a major downfall, while others think this process is extremely beneficial. The following paragraphs will discuss the pros and cons surrounding both sides of this topic and the reasoning that births each one.

The issue of contemporary homelessness has took a huge shift from the common perception of homeless people. I am witnessing a shift from the image of ‘homelessness’ being a physically dirty, pan handling, poor, uneducated individual who does not have a physical home for shelter. Initially, I failed to recognize that ‘homelessness’ can be a temporary state on can live in. Not all homeless people are homeless by “choice”, sometimes people are homeless by “force”. Events such as natural disasters or even death of a parent/spouse are uncontrolled

With everything going on with the Walmart workers picketing for fifteen dollars an hour wages, the topic is widely discussed with many people taking many different sides. The essay “Raising the Minimum wage will reduce poverty” By Sharon Parrott and Jason Furman, They go into how they think the minimum wage should be raised in order to decrease poverty in america, Of course there are reasons to raise it and reasons to not raise it. Yet with the multitude of reasons for and against it, it’s hard to make a decision that makes everybody content, Some of the reasons not to raise it include, Raising it can make prices for everyday items go up, Why go and spend thousands of dollars on college when you could get a decent job right out of high school, and Why let workers who work at unskilled jobs make as much if not more than the military. Some reasons for minimum wage raising is, The fact that the cost of living is higher means people can’t survive with minimum wage without federal care, And just helping people get back on their feet when they couldn’t find a job. The reasons Minimum wage shouldn’t be raised outweigh the reasons it should.

The solution to the minimum-wage problem that haunts American workers in the 21st century is to strive for lower everyday expenses rather than for a higher minimum wage. The renowned author Barbara Ehrenreich, in her informational novel Nickel and Dimed, tells the story of how she performed a social experiment by working several minimum wage jobs, while living a lifestyle of a low-wage worker. In her novel, Ehrenreich concludes that minimum wage workers “in good health” can “barely support [themselves]” (199). Even though Ehrenreich earned “$1039 in one month,” at the end of the month she only had “$22 left over” as she had to spend “$517” on food and gas, and “$500” to pay her rent (197). As evident, Ehrenreich’s wage is not the cause of her

During the Obama administration there has been a call to rise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour. Those who support the rise claim it is a only “fair” for workers to have a “living wage”. Those who against the rise of the minimum wage say it would have a negative effect on business, small business especially. Business should not mandated to provide to provide a minimum wage based on the governments’ say. In fact I believe the minimum wage should not be raised at all.

In the modest term, a minimum wage is a lawfully authorized minor bound for wages, but the term “lawfully authorised” is unclear, leading too many different kinds of minimum wages institutions (Cunningham et al, 2007:19). It further states that in the most straight forward cases, such as Brazil and Bolivia, the federal government identifies a wage level and all employers in the country must pay at that level or above it (2007:19).

Being homeless, a struggle known by too many in the United States, in fact there are estimated numbers of 633,782 people being homeless in just the United States alone. These people have found their self’s homeless for many different reasons like bad decisions, not a high enough paying job, or no job could be found,

Around 60 percent of workers benefiting from a higher minimum wage are women. Less than 20 percent are teenagers. Also, those workers who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage brought home 46 percent of their household’s total wage and salary income in 2011. These factors show that raising the minimum wage directly helps parents make ends meet and support their