Looking into the Minimum Wage
These
days there are few things in the world that can be considered universal truths,
especially in the current world climate where just about everything under the
sun can and has been made into an argument. Despite all the contention in the
public discourse there is one fact that seems incredibly difficult to disagree
with: It is hard to live without money; especially because with everything in
the world, from basics like food and water all the way to the computer or phone
you’re reading this on, everything cost a bit of the green stuff. Since July 24,
2009, the United States has had a set national minimum wage of $7.25. However,
between significant amounts of research and public pressures, there has been
some controversy among lawmakers as to whether or not this minimum is an
adequate enough sum to actually live on.
In
2014, Rep. Tim Ryan a Democratic lawmaker from Ohio tried to understand exactly
this issue with a social challenge that had gained a lot of popularity during this
period. The challenge was simply named the "live the wage challenge,” the rules of which require the
participant to only live off of the federal minimum for a week to understand
how effectivly someone can live off of the sum. One unforeseen, child related expense
later, and Rep. Ryan’s budget was already heavily impacted: “A few hours in and we're already
recognizing the challenges." While Rep. Ryan had a powerful safety net to
fall back on with his actual paycheck of roughly 11 times the minimum, it is
hard to argue with the point his challenge made-- $7.25 isn’t very much to live
on at all.
A popularly proposed solution to the minimum
wage’s insufficient nature has been to (perhaps to an extent, simply) raise it.
There has been a recent political movement within the last decade to transform
the minimum wage into a “living wage,” or in layman’s terms, the ability to
earn what they realistically would require for necessities; things such as food
and housing. This living wage has gone through various proposed amounts, such
as a proposed $10.10 in 2014 by a coalition of economists and $15 a year later,
the later a major promise of Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. Opponents
of the living wage argue that businesses would need to make cuts to personnel
in order to keep up with the new wage laws, and maybe that is a legitimate
concern that needs to be addressed with any new bill. But the status quo of
keeping it the same still presents that same issue we started with: It’s not
just hard, it’s close to impossible to live without money.
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