|
|
Post by Sydney Livingston on Sept 20, 2015 9:55:57 GMT -8
I agree with Sam that the government should spend time and resources helping the homeless or unemployed who really are living in poverty and can not afford to provide for themselves. They should not have to give money to employed citizens who can afford food and shelter and the other basic needs to live. I agree that when he says "the raise increase could increase prices and send more people below the poverty line than before" because the increase in pay could cause inflation which would make goods more expensive. This would push even more people into poverty because they will not be able to keep up with the rise in prices.
|
|
|
|
Post by Matthew Brunetti on Sept 20, 2015 10:40:19 GMT -8
Right now, the minimum wage in California is $9/hour. That means that if employees work 40 hours a week, every week for a year, they would only get $17,280 in a year, barely enough to buy a car. However, this number is low in order to keep items cheap. If minimum wage would increase, that means produce and other items would go up in price, because more people would have more money, so inflation would occur. It is because of this that I don't really agree with the anything less than $15/hour is poverty. Most people who get minimum wage are fast food employees, and that's usually the cashier, which take little to no work to do, so I think minimum wage is a good payment for them. The government does not have to support giving fast food employees higher pay, what they have to do is support migrant workers that spend hours in the sun picking crops and get less than minimum wage. If we raised the pay of migrant workers and not fast food workers, than I would agree to boosting minimum wage to $15/hour
|
|
|
|
Post by Matthew Brunetti on Sept 20, 2015 10:45:41 GMT -8
I agree with Sam when he said that "The raise increase could increase prices" because it's true. While not as bad as in the past, people having more money than they already make will cause the government to have to produce more, which will lead to inflation. For example, say a gallon of milk is $2.99, if minimum wage increases, thus increasing the amount of money EVERYONE in that company will have to get, because the manager still needs to get enough money to pay that $15/hour, the price of milk might raise to $4.99 or more.
|
|
|
|
Post by diegoletamendi on Sept 20, 2015 10:59:23 GMT -8
I think a federally-mandated minimum wage of $15 an hour does not make a whole lot of sense, just because of the diversity of the United States. In some places, $15 an hour might be enough to be well into the middle-class. In other places, it might be just slightly enough to keep someone off of the poverty line.
I think that what the federal government should do is to mandate states to maintain that anyone working a standard 40 hour week at minimum wage should not be in poverty. However, they should do this by adjusting the minimum wage for each municipality. This would mean that people working minimum wage in the County of San Francisco would probably have a higher wage than the people working minimum wage in, say, Fresno County.
|
|
|
|
Post by diegoletamendi on Sept 20, 2015 11:49:47 GMT -8
I agree with Noah that minimum wage jobs usually require little to no skill, and that they should be for younger people, not older people.
That's why we should focus more on the education of the citizens of the U.S. Minimum wage jobs should be for those who are either in school, or fresh out of school and looking for a better job. They should not be people who have been out of school for 10 years (or longer).
We should be looking at the bigger picture, and questioning why these minimum wage jobs are being held by a generally higher-age electorate. Maybe some form of higher education (past high school) should become necessary? It doesn't specifically have to be right after high school, so people could take a 5-10 year break, and then go back to school to earn a degree and a higher-paying job.
|
|
|
|
Post by emmalandry14 on Sept 20, 2015 11:51:09 GMT -8
I do not agree that making minimum wage leads to poverty. What leads to poverty is the ridiculously expensive cost of living in certain parts of the country. If the cost of living were reduced, or even just made constant at a reasonable amount, there would be no issue with making minimum wage. The issue isn't whether minimum wage should be raised or lowered, the issue is figuring out how to regulate the cost of living. That being said, the government is only responsible for helping people to a certain extent. If an individual is showing effort in trying to improve their lives, the government should be supportive of that, but if someone is "mooching" off the government, they should not be supported.
|
|
|
|
Post by emmalandry14 on Sept 20, 2015 11:56:44 GMT -8
I agree with Savannah. Poverty is viewed as not being able to enjoy luxuries in life when that isn't what it truly is. Our society views poverty as much less than it actually is and that may be part of the issue.
|
|
|
|
Post by Erika Escalona on Sept 20, 2015 12:10:33 GMT -8
Right now, it is almost impossible to feed a family with only a pay that is less then $15 dollars an hour, which sadly leads to poverty. Although I also believe that raising the minimum wage will not change much because in order to do this we have to raise the entire economy, even Bernie Sanders admits to this. So I believe raising the minimum wages would be great but realistically the change would be minimal. The US government absolutely has resonsiblilty to support those people working minimum wages. That's why I propose for all the jobs that are considered low skilled to be evaluated again, to verify if the workers should really earn minimum wages or should be payed more. I believe a lot of the jobs we consider low skilled, deserve higher wages then they are given.
|
|
|
|
Post by Erika Escalona on Sept 20, 2015 12:28:51 GMT -8
I disagree with Sydney L. when she's says The "U.S. government should not have responsibility to help those working for minimum wage because not all minimum wage workers need this financial help" because if you see how minimum wages and poverty are connected this opinion is not very reasonable. For example if a family lives off the minimum wage, and has to feed for the whole family , rent, gas, and all the essentials in life, it doesn't leave them any money for much more. They aren't able to save any money for emergencies, so if something wrong happens to them in the future they are doomed. That why we need the government to support these workers because we can prevent possible poverty for the workers.
|
|
|
|
Post by Kiana Radliff on Sept 20, 2015 13:45:15 GMT -8
Sanders quoted Thom Hartmann “If you work a 40 hour week and keep your knows clean, you show up for work and you do your job, you should be able to not live in poverty.” I agree with this statement. When people are working hard to be able to provide for themselves and/or their family, they should be paid enough in which can support them to do so. By raising the minimum wage to $15, sure enough there will be a definite change in reducing poverty. According to the Economic Policy Institute, “Workers in the bottom 20 percent of wage earners receive over $45 billion in government assistance each year from the six primary means-tested income-support programs.” This takes away a great deal of assets from the government in which could be used to support other programs with more priority. The government is supposed to do what is best for the people, and that in many aspects are to raise the minimum wage. However, this would also have a lasting impact on the businesses they do this to, and may just result in increased sale prices. Though this raise in minimum wage is much needed, there needs to be great consideration of what the best process is to do this so the overall economical impact can be as small as possible.
|
|
|
|
Post by Kiana Radliff on Sept 20, 2015 13:48:23 GMT -8
I agree with Erika when she said "The US government absolutely has resonsiblilty to support those people working minimum wages." The US government is supposed to support the people. Because they need to do what is best for the people, if they have the opportunity to bring families out of poverty (which they can with raising the minimum wage), they should be doing everything in their power to do so.
|
|
|
|
Post by Jordan T on Sept 20, 2015 16:13:56 GMT -8
I do, for the most part, agree with Sanders that a wage of less than $15 an hr is too small and difficult to live off of. If you are living on the current minimum wage, it is difficult to support yourself and even more difficult to support a family. While it is obvious that some jobs are far easier than others and deserve less pay, I believe that all should be able to provide a person with enough money to buy food, rent and some basic resources. In addition, young adults often only have low wage jobs and can't afford to have a child as a result because they fear they cannot financially provide for them. This (almost) doubling of the current minimum wage would certainly provide many with enough money to live a more luxurious and less stressful life. In addition, it would allow for people to more easily provide for their family.
Despite the clear outcome of more people being happy with their pay and being able to buy more resources, I do not believe that raising the minimum wage by that substantial of an amount is a smart idea because of the economic outcomes that are sure to come later. Raising the wage by that much would ensure that the American citizen, on average, would get a far higher pay and, as a time has always shown, when money is easier to come across, inflation is certain to follow. With that high of raise, the value of the U.S. dollar in comparison with the rest of the world's currencies will be even less valuable as anybody who could work even the most basic jobs could get a descent amount of money. The minimum wages in the rest of the world cause poverty and do not provide so a change in ONLY our country would negatively impact us.
Yes, it would make the normal individual pleased for the next five or ten years but when the US dollar is worth 50% of the Euro by 2020, we will need to again raise the minimum wage to $25 and so on. An increase in money being paid to individuals means less value.
|
|
|
|
Post by Jordan T on Sept 20, 2015 16:30:37 GMT -8
I agree entirely with Erika when she says that changing the minimum wage would not be effective unless we raised the entire economy. Giving people more certain money would only lower the value of our economy and for this to even make a difference, we must first make our money and economy better in comparison to the rest of the world. She is also correct when she says it would seem great but have a small change in reality. The U.S. certainly has a responsibility to help and care for these people so that they survive but raising the minimum wage would not actually help them. They must strive for higher paying jobs or an education to get better jobs. I do, however, not think that a re-evaluation of the wage each job deserves would be particularly affective as this would simply make some jobs get more pay which, in the long run, does the same thing as raising normal wages.
In reality, it is impossible to have a country or society that does not have a lower class that is struggling to survive as they live in poverty. It is unrealistic to believe that a whole country can be raised to live in luxury. As a result of America's capitilistic society, it is especially unreasonable to try and raise people from poverty because of all of the wealthy business owners and the 1% who take much of America's money. The idea that raising the minimum wage would bring people out of poverty is a false one and it is impossible to believe that there will ever be a country with no lower class. (Sorry for how depressing and pessimistic that sounded)
|
|
|
|
Post by Maddie Barrios on Sept 20, 2015 16:41:38 GMT -8
I do not agree with Sanders in that a less than $15 dollar minimum wage leads to poverty, as it is a very one-sided statement. Poverty isn't caused by just one thing, it is the result of multiple factors contributing to create a impoverish outcome. Poverty has to do with the number people you are trying to support with your salary and the area in which you live, as some places have higher living costs than others. Poverty is also caused by lack of education, as it is harder for people to find decent paying jobs without their GED or other credentials. By raising the minimum wage, you are finding a short term solution to a long term issue. The increase in pay may seem beneficial at first, but it could very well lead to inflation; as more money flowing through our economy could lead to the value of our US dollar to decrease. This would not help our country's economical and financial state, as it would only bring about more problems to be solved by more one-sided solutions. If any political leaders seek to solve this issue of poverty, they need to focus on the underlying factors, such as education. If we could better our country's overall educational system and raise the average level of education for the typical american, we can decrease the amount of people who live off of low-paying jobs, and in turn, better our poverty rates. Raising minimum wage doesn't solve poverty, but raising our standards will. I do not believe that the US government should have the responsibility of supporting those who live off of minimum wage, as not every person who works a minimum wage job is in poverty. Minimum wage and it's effect on a person's financial state has to due with more personal factors like how many people the worker is trying to support and their average cost of living in relation to their area's minimum wage rate. Also, the definition of poverty is often found in different variations and isn't easy to standardize as different people have different views of what poverty means. My personal definition of poverty is not being able to financially provide the basic necessities of life, such as water, food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and education. Anything other than those six crucial things is not necessary. Just because a person doesn't have the latest materialistic item doesn't mean they are in any way in poverty. And so based on my definition, I believe that the government shouldn't have to support all minimum wage workers, unless a person who works minimum wage falls under this category of living.
|
|
|
|
Post by Krista Spurlock on Sept 20, 2015 16:42:13 GMT -8
I agree with Sanders: making anything less than $15 an hour leads to poverty. You can't fully support yourself and a family with that little amount of money. Let's say you work a 40-hour week at $15 an hour. You would be making $600 a week, and $2,400 a month, and $28,800 a year. That's not that much, but it's enough to get a single person or even a small family by. I agree the minimum wage should be raised, but it's not the US government's responsibly to support those who work minimum wage jobs. It is your life and how much you make you be able to budget that. The government does not have to make sure you are doing ok. They can offer extra help but it's not a requirement. You should be able to find a job that meets your needs, and if you have to start with a minimum wage job, you an work your way up. People need to learn how to manage their money and work within their means. Raising the minimum wage will help.
|
|
