Raising Minimum Wage Research Paper

Ezekiel Adamson Ms. Brown Argumentative Writing 06 February 2024 The Pros and Cons of Raising the Minimum Wage. Many Americans struggle to make a household survive with their level of income. Should the government raise the minimum wage? This is a question that you may often hear in the workplace. In order to make a decision on what side you fall on, you have to weigh the pros and cons. These are the pros: improving the standard of living, and helping to close the gender pay gap; and the cons: raising the minimum wage would decrease employment rates, and reduce the benefits companies provide their employees. Let's now expand upon these statements further. THE PROS: Raising the minimum wage increases the ability of individuals to spend money, …show more content…
The total directly or potentially affected workers by 2032 would surpass 23 million.” (Boyle) This study shows that by raising the minimum wage many individuals would be raised above the poverty line. Now we will look at another pro to raising the minimum. The second pro of raising the minimum wage is closing the gender pay gap. A major problem with the current minimum wage, is the majority of individuals working at or below the minimum wage are female. “More than 63.3% of those working at minimum wage are female, as well as that 599,000 of the women in the workforce are paid under minimum wage. Accordingly, by raising the federal minimum wage it would reduce the pay gap between men and women caused by the low minimum wage in the workforce” (Characteristics of minimum wage). Conversely, there are cons to raising the minimum wage which will now be expanded upon. THE CONS: Requiring employers to pay more money would not fix the economic struggle within the lower American class. Therefore, the first con to raising the minimum is a decrease in employment …show more content…
A raise in minimum wage could affect the benefits given to workers from companies in terms of insurance and retirement benefits. “Due to the rise in wages, hours worked by employees decreased by 20.8% per week impacting the number of individuals eligible for insurance benefits” (Yu et al.). In other words, more part-time individuals means less insured workers. Furthermore, another study “found that for every $1 increase in minimum wage, the percentage of workers working more than 20 hours per week (making them eligible for retirement benefits) decreased by 23.0%, while the percentage of workers working more than 30 hours per week (making them eligible for health care benefits) decreased by 14.9” (Yu et al.). So by raising the minimum wage, the number of workers eligible for benefits would decrease. Raising the minimum wage could negatively impact employers directly and indirectly, further causing negative effects to the overall economy. CONCLUSION In conclusion, there are pros and cons the government should take into account when making a decision on whether or not to raise the minimum

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