Minimum Wage Increase

Minimum Wage Increase
Jessica Gough
WRIT 3037.03
Mrs. Longest
March 22, 2010
Minimum Wage Increase
Surprisingly, many people many don not know at much the federal minimum wage rate is currently set. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, “The federal minimum wage for covered nonexempt employees is $5.85 per hour effective July 24, 2007” (Department of Labor). Minimum wage should be increased for a number of reasons. Positive reasons exceed negative effects. Reasons minimum wage should be raised are the current minimum wage can be utilized as a tool by employers as the alternative to take advantage of employees, economic growth will motivated by employee’s purchasing power if federal minimum wage is raised, and finally because the cost of living exceeds income.
Minimum wage should be raised because employers can utilize minimum wage as possibly taking advantage of employees. Many employers pay their employees minimum wage when their job is worth much more. According to attorneys, federal minimum wage provisions are contained in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Sexual harassment and employment discrimination get all newspaper headlines, but the Fair Labor Standards Act is the most violated of all the federal employment laws. Employees who run a convenience store or cook in a kitchen should get paid more than $5.85 per hour. If the United States raised the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour as planned to do so by the end of July 2009, “an estimated 7.3 million workers (5.8% of the workforce) would receive an increase in their hourly wage rate. Due to spillover effects, the 8.2 million workers (6.5% of the workforce) earning up to a dollar above the minimum would also benefit from an increase, the federal minimum wage is at its lowest real value in over 50 years” (Fox 2010). If the minimum wage were raised this high, it would definitely have a negative effect on employers’ pocketbooks, especially the larger companies such as Kohl’s whose...