Download RomanelliEssay2RaiseTheMinimumWage

Gianna romanelli
PHI 274
Essay #2
Raising the Minimum wage
One of the hot-button discussions of the United States this year, especially with the
upcoming election, is the minimum wage. Federal legislatures are considering whether or not to
raise the current minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour nationwide. With America's poverty
rate increasing, money is a matter of life for many working Americans. Wage is a heated
discussion in many low wage full time jobs especially in the fast food industry.
Specific dollar amounts of minimum wage currently vary from state to state. No one
employer is legally allowed to pay an employee less than the state-mandated minimum. If a state,
city, or employer were to pay less than this amount they could face serious consequences.
However, it is completely legal to go above this limit. Some states, like California, have already
made the jump to fifteen dollars an hour. On the other hand, not all states have been so quick to
make the change. For instance, the Massachusetts minimum wage is nine dollars an hour, but in
Maine the minimum wage is only eight dollars. The federal minimum was $7.25 an hour five
years ago but has since bumped up to $8.25 an hour. Even with this slight increase, the wage
would give full-time employees a grand total of just above twelve-thousand dollars annually.
According to the economics, an individual working full time on minimum wage does not
make enough to sustain themselves. However not all workers live alone. Many of them are trying
to sustain a family. In this situation, these families are going hungry, and just barely reaching
over the line of poverty. Workers in low-income jobs are often migrants, low skilled, and
probably did not grow up in the best economic situation. Because of the societal influence,
citizens in these situations are left off working the worst jobs. To raise the minimum wage would
give those who are in need of assistance the money to provide for themselves and their families.
By performing some simple math, we can determine just how little the minimum wage covers.
For example, let's imagine a mother who works at wendy’s forty hours a week at the minimum
wage of $7.25 an hour. She makes only $290 dollars a week, and that's $1,160 a month, and
thusly $13,920 per year. The American poverty level is $12,000 a year. A single woman who
works in retail, full time, for nine dollars an hour makes $17,280 a year. Considering that the
bare minimum wage in some states is between $7.25 and $8 an hour, the monetary amount is
barely getting its employees above the poverty line. $13,920 a year is barely enough to sustain
one person, image that money trying to pay for the cost of a family.
The topic is a split issue between the economic pros and cons that come with having a
federal minimum wage. In a letter to president Obama in 2013, six-hundred economists agreed
that a raise would be beneficial to the American nation as a whole (Economists Statements on the
Minimum Wage). The raise from $7.25 to nine or ten dollars would give families slightly more
financial literacy. They would be able to afford food, clothes, shelter, and other basic needs. Plus
having the money would allow them to purchase based on their preferences. With an increased
wage would come increase spending, thus putting more money flow into the economy. Thus, the
money would circulate into the government and increase the economies GDP. Restaurants will
find that their sales will increase with the minimum wage. The highest sales increase is
speculated at being almost five-percent in Nevada and Utah (Restaurants.org). Small business
would benefit from their employees getting a raise in the minimum wage. The only argued
disadvantages to the raise would be the result of having no benefits at all. Some experts argue
that if the minimum wage were to be increased it would not change the lives of anyone or
improve our GDP (Washington Post). For some politicians, there is an assumption if that teens
work these types of Summer jobs they would reap the rewards instead of the struggling adult
employee (US Department of Labor). Additionally a raise would force small businesses to pay
more and thus have to cut employees in order to meet that requirement. Some politicians find it
easier to leave minimum wages in the hands of the capitalists rather than the government.
However, it could possibly create a repeat disaster of the industrial revolution, where one man
sought to change the way the system functioned for the working class.
When discussing the workforce only one philosopher comes to mind, and that is Karl
Marx. He is the author of the Communist Manifesto, and founder of the Communists party.
According to Marx, capitalists want the minimum wage to be the same, or not exist at all simply
to reduce the labor cost of a factory. When capitalists have to pay for labor it is indeed costing
them money they could be putting towards making more money. Therefor, capitalists will exploit
workers by forcing them work lower wages in order to get a job at all. The least well off, present
day fast-food employees, are constantly being exploited even before their wage is lowered. Once
they get their paycheck they must pay rent, or try and get food to feed their family. Thus their
money goes to some other higher CEO in a grocery store, and a person who owns private
property. The worker is left with nothing.
The minimum wage was established for this very reason. By setting a bare payment, lowwage workers will be able to accrue money so they can survive from day to day without the fear
of death. But it seems that can be a problem too, for the low-wage worker cannot afford the cost
of insurance. They can get sick, or injured, as people do, they will not have the insurance to
cover medical costs. They will still be hungry, cold, possibly homeless, and still have the
potential to die. A raise in minimum wage seems like the overall humanistic thing to do.
However Marx finds that capitalists frankly don't care, so an elimination of this class divide is
called for right away. A violent class revolution, as history seems to call for, is what Marx would
suggest to solve all these issues. The proletariat needs a higher minimum wage because that will
force larger companies to pay their employees more. The minimum wage is geared at one of the
largest industries that the world has ever seen. Fast food chains like McDonalds, Burger king,
Taco Bell, are against raising the minimum wage for their employees because they will not make
the billions of dollars as they are now.
A sample survey shows that at least fifty-seven percent of American small business
owners would be in favor of a wage raise for their employees (Small Business Majority). Small
business owners are not making as much capital as many larger companies would. The raise
would be giving more to the workers, or the proletariat, thus boosting morale. Capitalists may be
against raising the wage because it could mean a shift in power. Paying more money for those
who work in unions of other organization could pose a threat to larger companies. CEO’s may be
afraid of losing their capitalist grasp over the government. This is not the violent revolution that
Marx would want, but it's a revolution none-the-less. Proletariat fast-food unions are banding
together in order to protest. They are feared by their superior because when protest occur,
employees don't go to work. Marx fights for the immediate need of workings, in this case, a
federal minimum wage increase would not be a topic open for debate. The workers are
vulnerable to these increase or decrease in wage. Marx would likely not care for the vagueness of
the economic factors when it comes to the minimum wage. Some may theorize that an increase
in wage will decrease employment. But according to Marx as long as there is the bourgeoisie,
there will be workers, and as long as there are workers there will be jobs, and there will be
communists.
Our concept of freedom is based on the idea the we are able to consume. If we can buy
things we want, then we are free. It is the external economies that create our societal values when
it comes to working. The capitalist grasp thus forces us into work so we can consume and give
more money to capitalists fueling the system in a never ending spiral. All our efforts will always
go into the capitalist class, and if we refuse to pay we are likely to suffer. In the Marxist view,
capitalists are aware of the threat that working middle-class has. When they stand up, the
oppressors will ship the out to countries where they cannot have influence. It's an issue.
Capitalisms one downfall seems to be easily avoided by, just making them go away. Marxism
calls for a violent revolution, and since capitalists cannot just keep shipping workers away,
violence may become a scary, but realistic, way of destroying leveling the playing feild.