Should the government increase the minimum wage Essay

Should the government accession the nominal earnings - Essay Examplet employers could non afford these federally mandated pay raises and would be forced to lay-off workers and that most persons who make the minimum earnings ar teenager or temporary workers, not heads of households with a dependent family to support. This discussion examines the benefits of raising the minimum wage not only for those workers who would gain monetarily but to employers as well and the economy as a whole.Currently, the minimum wage stands at $5.15 per hour. Congress recently voted itself another pay raise but killed a acme that would raise the minimum wage to $7.50 an hour. Raising the minimum wage to $7.50 would positively affect the lives of more than cardinal million workers, including an estimated 760,000 single mothers and 1.8 million parents with children under 18 (Dobbs, 2006). This modest increase would only have regorge minimum wage earners near the poverty line, about $16,000 for a fam ily of three (Poverty Guidelines, 2006). As a termination of the inaction by Congress, these eight million American workers will not be able to put up the most basic needs for their families. In 2002, the U.S. Census reported that approximately 2.6 million full-time, year-round workers were subsisting at wages that placed them below the poverty line (U.S. Census Bureau, 2003, p. 7). The minimum wage has not been brocaded in seven years, the longest time span since the law first went into effect in 1938. This free fall in the real value of the minimum wage over the last seven years translates into dishonor real wages for millions of workers and contributes to the income gap between poor working families and the middle class.Raising the minimum wage would allow those who make minimum salaries to keep up with inflation. It would help those that need it the most such as single mothers and minorities. In addition, it would cause a ripple effect in that wages would also increase for t hose that make just above the minimum. In 1968, a full-time employee who earned