Minimum Wage Increase

10 Pages 2561 Words

Money is what drives our modern society. For thousands of years, man has had a type of currency, even if the currency method is simple trading of goods. Money is what distinguishes the upper class from the lower class. With out money, there would be no poverty, there would be no millionaires. There would however be but one class of people, all of who share common finances. So, how hard would it be to achieve this goal? It’s probably not as difficult as you would have imagined, but we are far from it. The best we can do is making it so the people in poverty have a chance at earning a good living. We do this by instituting a minimum wage.
Minimum wage laws have been around for a mere hundred years. This is a very short amount of time, considering that man has hired paid laborers for many centuries. These laws are meant to do one thing; they are meant to help the working poor be less in poverty. But who are these minimum wages really affecting? When you first look at a proposal to increase the amount of a minimum wage, you are probably going to say more money is always good. What you’re not going to think of are the effects of this increase. If you do think of the effects, you probably only consider the positives, and toss aside the negative effects of such an increase. When taken into full consideration, do the positives really outweigh the negatives? This is a question that only you yourself can decide
During the Clinton presidency, he gave states the power to set minimum wages above the federal wage. So far 12 states have done so, and New York is one of those states. In December of 2004, a law was passed that would raise the minimum wage for NY workers from the federal wage of $5.15 per hour to $7.15 per hour over the course of two years. One increase to $6 per hour occurred on January 1st, 2005. A second increase to $6.75 per hour will occur on January 1st, 2006. And a third will occur on January 1st, 2007, and will raise the min...