Pay rent on a broken down apartment or buy food for hungry kids?  This is not a decision any American should be forced to make.  Unfortunately, millions of American families work for minimum wage and are forced to choose what bills get paid each month which bills don’t.  If any of those families were asked if the minimum wage should be raised, I feel the response would be an overwhelming, yes!  I agree.  Although there are arguments for not raising the minimum wage, there are many more benefits that support raising the minimum wage.  I will highlight why raising the minimum wage is good for the both the economy and low wage workers and how it could help millions of families in the United States.

The first point I will be making in the minimum wage debate is how raising the minimum wage will increase economic activity and spur job growth.  Economic Policy Institute stated that an increase of the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour would inject $22.1 billion in net spending into the economy and spur 85,000 more jobs.  This statistic shows that job growth increases when the minimum wage increases because more people who were relying on welfare are eager to get a job since the pay rate was increased.  Another statistic that the American Progression Act recorded was how the minimum wage has been changed since 1990.  When all 50 states and 1 territory raised the minimum wage, 47 of those states saw a definite decrease in unemployment and the other 4 states saw no change.  

Another important study conducted by the American Progression Act was the effect of raising the minimum wage in states or areas with high unemployment rates.  Academic studies showed that raising the minimum wage in high unemployment areas does not harm existing jobs and still continues to increase job growth.  One of the primary areas studied was Texas in 1990-1991.  At the time the unemployment rate was only 7.0%, but still very high. As the statistics show, raising the minimum wage has a positive effect on unemployment rates and continues to increase and spur job growth.

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A second reason why raising the minimum wage is good for our economy is it reduces poverty throughout our country.  Many democrats feel that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would reduce the number of people living in poverty in the United States by 4.6 million people.  Another conclusion you can draw from raising the wage would boost the level of income for the lowest 10th percentile by $1,700 a year.  These statistics show that just by raising the minimum wage a little bit, the number of those living in poverty would decrease and create more jobs and more wealth in communities. 

An additional supporting argument is included in a paper by David Neumark, it states that raising the minimum wage by just 10% would decrease poverty by 2.9%.  You can see that raising the minimum wage decreases poverty and makes more people more money!  If more people have more money to buy goods and services, jobs are created and economies grow.

The next point I will be making is how raising the minimum wage will increase job productivity in the work place.  A research studied by John Smith said that he found that 90% of restaurant employees in the states of Georgia and Alabama plan to respond to increases in the minimum wage by doing more work at their jobs.  The study revealed that 9 out of 10 people said they would increase their job productivity if their paychecks were bigger.  Employees respond much more respectfully and are more cooperative when they’re making more money.  The expected result is an increased sense of pride and accomplishment resulting in employees doing more than what is expected of them.  

Raising the minimum wage would also have a huge increase in the need for employees to positively compete with each other in the work place. This would occur when someone works a sales job and makes minimum wage plus money from commission. This would increase competition in the sales force because people are eager to make more money.  If employers are forced to pay a higher minimum wage plus commission, those salespeople would be motivated to exceed expectations and keep their job.  Raising the minimum wage in America not only increases job productivity, it would make the employees more serious about keeping their job and being rewarded for doing well.

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Although I believe my argument is strong, I do understand how some people would think that the minimum wage should not be increased. Some small business owners may struggle to stay open if they were forced to pay more for labor. Or, the cost of goods would need to be increased and cause hardships on those needing those goods. It isn’t crazy to think that the minimum wage might have a few negative effects on a small number of Americans, but history has shown that increasing the minimum wage would have a greater effect on a nation as a whole.

Through these many studies, and employee examples, you can see that raising the minimum wage will not have a large scale negative effect on the economy. By what I have researched, raising the minimum wage would not hurt the economy. Some employees even said that raising the minimum wage where they work will increase how many hours they work, how much they get done, and how much harder they work at their jobs even competing against their own colleagues. Raising the minimum wage will help our economy by spurring job growth, reduce poverty, and increase the job productivity around the United States.

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