Why minimum wage should be raised?

Introduction

Minimum wage must be raised for us to survive in our very modern society. The minimum wage must be raised today because the cost of living has gone up drastically. Education is essential today, and that price tag has increased drastically in the past twenty years as well. People should not have to fight for equal pay for equal work. Companies should be forced to pay their workers what they deserve, and that is more than minimum wage is now. With our new technology and the technology in the future work is harder and more complicated. A minimum wage increase would raise the wages of many workers and increase benefits to those disadvantaged workers (John, 136).

Because the cost of living has sky rocketed, it has become almost impossible to raise a family on a minimum wage job. A person living on his or her own cannot survive on minimum wage job either. Their living expense would just be too much. The earnings of minimum wage workers are crucial to their families well being. Evidence from 1996 and 1997 minimum wage increase shows that an average minimum wage worker brings home more than half of his or her family's weekly earnings.

In 1998 one million single mothers with children under 18 would have benefited from a minimum wage increase to $6.15. Single mothers are 10% of workers affected by an increase but they make up only 5.7 of the overall work force. More than two million married men and women with children under age 18 would also benefit from a one-dollar increase. Adults make up the largest share of workers who would benefit from a minimum wage increase. Adults age 20 and over will make up approximately sixty-eight percent of the workforce affected by a minimum wage increase to $6.75 by 2003. Close to half of the workers who would benefit from a minimum wage increase work full time and another third work between twenty and thirty four hours a week. The minimum wage needs to be increased for families to survive in our society today.

Discussion and Analysis

The cost of education is a lot more today. Not only has the price of college gone up but also the price of many private and catholic schools. A college education is essential in today's world. Children cannot better themselves if their parents cannot pay for their education. Some children have to rely on themselves to pay for college. They do not get to go, because they can't afford it on their minimum wage job. This is just not fair to our young kids who are the key to our future. If the minimum wage was increased, many people would be allowed the opportunity for a better education for themselves and their children. In the future you are going need a college degree to do almost anything. As technology gets better and more advanced the people are going to have to understand and learn more. Some businesses need educated ...