Minimum Wage | Teen Ink

Minimum Wage

January 16, 2017
By amf222 BRONZE, Hartalnd, Wisconsin
amf222 BRONZE, Hartalnd, Wisconsin
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

The country has a large problem on our hands.  Many of the United States citizens are wanting the minimum wage to increase, but what they do not know is that it can destroy small businesses and the fact that owners will have to fire people from their jobs.  The minimum wage is being decided if it should be raised or kept the same and many people are one side and many people are on the opposing side.  If it should be raised to $15 an hour than people will be seeing small businesses having boards on their windows.  This can be a double edged sword, it can help people but on the other side it can do terrible damage that is why the people have to fight against this raise because as a small business owner, there is a fear that one day my family's business, our loving second home, will lose to the wage increase.


When thinking “minimum wage” people most likely think about the lowest amount that people are paid in their day today work.  They are correct, but what if someone said that the minimum wage could be raised from $7.25 (or higher in other places) an hour to a whopping $15 an hour.  This was stated in the “Los Angeles city council clears way for minimum wage of $15 an hour.”  This can easily drop businesses in a couple weeks because of the way the prices work.  This is what happens if the minimum wage goes up.  The prices of small businesses have to go way up to keep the workers payed and that can drive away customers because they might not want to spend that kind of money for the businesses products.


People all have eaten there at least once in their life; McDonalds.  McDonald’s employees are going on strike because they want the minimum wage of their job to go from $9.01 to $15 because they think that the nine dollar wage is not enough to buy food, pay rent, etc,; and they are right.  Your family gave $2,000 as help to feed your family and pay rent, say they have a family of 4, and it takes $196 a day just to feed your family if the price for each meal is $28 dollars.  That is $588 a week on food alone.  Then when to pay rent of $290 dollars a week and when making a total of $405.45 a business week (5 days) working for 9 hours a day.  People would be spending up to $472.60 a week and that is without the bills that might come in the mail like medical bill, etc.  Without the money people need to live, they may never get to retirement because the average savings that people might need is when people are 55-64 they will need about $45,477.


In the article “Issue Overview: Income inequality” By: Bloomberg, the article was taking the thought of the people of the United States want a minimum wage increase and why it should not go through.  He takes the part of how people of the United States use the minimum wage and need to pay bills and rent that did not get in.  He also said that the “minimum wage was need to be raised a little bit because people are struggling and that it does not need to go up to $15 an hour”.  This act can help a lot of people because they can get the essentials and not be living on the street like the article states called “Homeless population rises 12 percent since 2013 in Los Angeles by Los Angeles Times”.  This article states that the homeless population plays a big part in the fact of why the minimum wage needs to go up.  This is because the people immediately go to the thinking of someone going broke.


The place of the people's opinion is the american way but with the authors who wrote all of the articles have the place in their hearts to find the ups and downs of the riot that are happening.  People getting more money to help the families and feed them.  The downside is that people will become lasey and not do their best to work for the $15 an hour.  It is like giving a dog bones every time he wakes the owner up.  People are rewarding for something they shouldn’t do for other people's sake.


Yes the world is not perfect but the fact of people wanting to unknowingly (hopefully) raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour which will put small businesses under.  The people of united states deserve the right to have a wage go up but they do not deserve the right to have that wage becime the downfall to other businesses.  Therefore the people should not be allowed to raise it to $15.  This is why the people need to defend the fact of not raising the minimum wage to $15, the people of the States of America need to stand United.



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