Raising The Minimum Wage
Rough Draft
America is a country that has thrived for hundreds of years on the concept that the working man should be able to provide for himself and his family. In today’s America however, a full time job, even at minimum wage, should allow families to do more than barely get by. The “American dream” is more than just surviving on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis. Millions of Americans in the workforce are paid minimum wage and cannot support themselves or their children without help. When workers are in poverty, it is a recipe for disaster for not only them, but for all American taxpayers. The minimum wage in America must be raised in order to stimulate the economy, thus creating jobs and reducing the poverty level nationwide.
One of the most prominent forces in the American economy is the fast food industry. Millions of people work for big fast-food chains and are paid minimum wage, even after years of working full time. With the federal minimum wage at $7.25 an hour, an employee who works 40 hours a week every single week will only make slightly over $15,000 a year. Therefore, it is no surprise that “more than half of fast-food workers’ families rely on public assistance to get by” (Johnston A1). A nation cannot thrive economically when one of its biggest industries does not even pay their employees enough money to live over the poverty line. Some people assume that most fast-food workers are teenagers, therefore they are not in danger of being below the poverty line. However, research has shown that “two-thirds of fast-food workers are adults, and a quarter of them have children” (Johnston A1). With the millions of American workers struggling to even survive and support their families, there is a severe lack of money being put back in to the economy. Opposers of a higher minimum wage claim that it would be too costly for businesses to pay their employees more money, causing them to...