With 150 million people employed in the United States the standard of living is quickly increasing. However, the cost of living is also rapidly increasing. Many people feel that minimum wage needs to be raised. However, what many people don't think about is that minimum wage has increase by more than 200% in the last 60 years. Still many workers feel that minimum wage needs to be increased. Labor unions are constantly working to protect workers' rights. However, what now seems to be the issue is globalization. Businesses now have to compete with other companies around the world. Because of this and the slowed economy many companies are struggling and they are looking for ways to cut expenses. One of the easiest ways is to decrease payroll. Due to that, they are outsourcing many jobs overseas where labor is cheaper. However, that is now leaving more and more Americans to fall under the poverty line. While many people felt that an increase in minimum wage would help struggling families others did not. Those opponents said that an increase in minimum wage would really just be helping teenagers, who are the majority of people working at minimum wage jobs. Also, since payroll expense would increase many businesses would likely cut their number of employees or raise their prices. Then many more people would be affected. However, people would were for minimum wage increases say that with more money in people's paychecks, the more money that would get back into the economy, causing more good then harm. In the end, Congress did raise the minimum wage in 2007. Still many people feel something needs to be done with minimum wage.
I feel that Congress needs to look into the minimum wage issue. I have a feeling that if wages increase then the price for goods will also increase because the business' overhead is increasing. Right now I think what Congress needs to do is keep the minimum wage at $7.25 for a while. John McCain feels that instead of constantly raising minimum wage the government should just help more people find jobs. Also, McCain feels that a good education is the key to a good life. McCain also stated that if minimum wage increases, it will cost businesses more money to pay employees and due to that they will likely cut down on their number of employees. So not instead of 50 employees they only have 30. That's 20 less people who can put money back into the economy. I feel that it would be more benificial to have more people working at a cheaper wage than to have just a few people working. Also, I would have to agree that a majority of the people working at minimum wage are teenagers. Of course they'd like more money but they don't have a large number of expenses to pay for like adults do. And if we do increase minimum wage then the cost of living is only going to increase and once again we will be in the same boat. However, I do think that every few years minimum wage should be re-evaluated and raised if needed to meet the costs of living and inflation. John McCain also supports the idea of having a living wage for citizens as long as it's not attached to big spending bills. I feel that if the minimum wage is way too low it won't be helping anyone in the economy and everyone will have less to spend and put back in the economy. But right now I think that minimum wage should be left at $7.25 until the economy recovers a bit.
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