Ever since President Joe Biden started campaigning for office, one of his biggest promises was raising the measly 7.25/hr minimum wage to $15 an hour in the US. This has caused Americans to debate whether it should or should not happen. The 15 dollar minimum wage was supposed to be a part of the Covid-19 bill that got passed in the senate on March 10th, but it ended up getting dropped from the bill. Let’s say that a 15 dollar minimum wage was passed, how would it impact the workers, businesses, and most importantly our economy.
Joe Biden is right, it’s time that the working class of America take a stand and get a decent amount of money to be able to support themselves and be able to afford their expenses.
Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour would increase wages for 17 million US workers and would give a better chance for those workers that might be the only source of income due to the number of people laid off due to covid 19. It will also help the working class that has kids, there should never be someone working 30 hours a week not being able to support themselves and their family. Doing this would also get rid of the 1.1 million people who make under the minimum wage in the US.
I still think we could have an increase in the wage even though it could cause some problems. For example, due to Covid 19 small businesses with less than 50 employees, only 47 percent of them made it through the pandemic. With small businesses having to pay a lot more than the current 7.25 minimum pushing it to 15 dollars, most small businesses would not be able to afford that kind of expense. According to studies by the CBO, employment would go down by 0.9 percent which doesn’t sound like much, but would mean 1.4 million Americans out of a job.
Regarding both sides of the argument, I believe that the best move would be to let states decide their own minimum wage, but I still think there should be some type of raise to somewhere in the 12 dollar range. I feel like if you work over 30 hours a week you should not be struggling to support yourself. It’s more important now than any other time with the slump our country is in due to Covid 19.
