Minimum Wage in America

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the minimum wage and, in particular, why it does not work in America today. It looks at how the federal minimum wage was created to ensure American workers received adequate and fair wages during the Great Depression, when jobs were scarce and wages were abysmally low and how, today, the federal minimum wage stirs controversy and ire in many areas of American politics and business. It evaluates how the federal minimum wage has served its usefulness and how many believe there are now better ways to ensure workers receive adequate wages.

From the Paper:

"Along with job loss, raising the minimum wage can also have severe affects in many other areas of the American economy. A rising minimum wage can make it more difficult for people to return to the workforce from welfare, and it can encourage high-school students to drop out, as many studies have shown, including this one: "Minimum wage jobs are often thought of as 'entry-level' jobs. The evidence in our data supports this view. Among the workers earning the minimum wage in the second year of our panels, 39.4% were not employed in the prior year" (Even & Macpherson, 2003, 676). This seems to support the theory that many high school and college-aged young people are leaving school for jobs."

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