Does the government really want to end poverty?

Do you ever wonder why employers don’t pay their employees $5 per hour? Well, that is because of minimum wage. It is the lowest amount of money and employer can pay their employee, well at least legally. Minimum wage is a topic that is well recognized in the united states by many people. It is often used in jobs that don’t require much education or skill such as retail stores or fast-food restaurants. 

There have been several arguments on if the minimum wage amount should rise in some state’s multiple times throughout the years. The reason is usually because when you calculate how much a minimum wage worker makes, their yearly income is so low that it is almost impossible for them to financially support themselves in the state they live in or they barley male it by. What some people fail to realize is that minimum wage workers aren’t always adults with families but are often the children of those families. According to Oregon’s projected minimum wage workforce by family status, only one out of four minimum wage workers have children meaning it is often young people. So, raising the minimum wage can help some families who are struggling but it would mostly go towards teens who don’t have any responsibilities or bills to pay. Instead, the government needs to start creating jobs that pay more than minimum wage and targets older people.

When you walk into your nearest Gap or McDonalds you usually see 16–22-year-olds who are often students in high school and college or dropouts who work part time. In these kinds of jobs, workers who appear to be older are usually supervisors, assistant managers or general managers who get paid more than the part time workers who might not have the best education level. So, who exactly would minimum wage help if it is raised?

In, Minimum Wage Hike Would Help Poverty but Cost Jobs, Budget Office Says, Jason DeParle, a New York Times senior writer makes a point that raising minimum wage can be seen as a way to fight poverty and inequality, but it can also reduce jobs. Jason DeParle develops this point by explaining that when paying people more, companies will reduce staff to not lose money, making the issue of unemployment rates worse. This isn’t exactly the company’s fault because some businesses simply don’t make enough to both pay workers more and keep the same amount of people employed. So, raising minimum wage will lead to higher unemployment rates so instead of people not making enough to support themselves there will be people who won’t be making any type of income. This might be seen as a cost to raising people out of poverty, but it is not worth the cost if is helping one issue but feeding into another. 

My aunt, Maritza Vasquez was a victim of such actions. In 2016 she used to work for a company that packages the supermarket papers that are left in front of some buildings or in supermarkets that have coupons and specials. She worked there for a few years but in 2017, she was laid off due to minimum wage rising in New York to $15 an hour. I remembered this happening and interviewed her about how it impacted her. She shared that it was a difficult time because as a mother of two kids who was also an immigrant, she struggles to look for work. She was unemployed for about 3 months before finding another minimum wage job which barley made a difference to her because she had to use a lot of her savings to keep supporting her family, so she had to start over. It was “scary knowing there’s a possibility she might hit her last $100 in her savings and she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it”. There are many people who’ve experienced such fear and they can’t do anything but try to file for unemployment if they’re aware of it and try to find another job. Let’s say when wages are increased, jobs aren’t allowed to fire some of their staff, they will start to get this money difference in other ways such as increasing their prices. This will make items harder for some people to get, making it pointless since they won’t be able to afford the product at these new prices. This is unfair to the public because although the government wants to help, this isn’t the right way because it’ll backfire on poverty.

The risks of raising minimum wage are worth it to the government because “with more money, workers would be inclined to spend more, strengthening the economy” (Ember, Sydney). Raising minimum wage can potentially help the economy because people will have more money to spend essentially giving it back to the economy. This means the purpose of raising the minimum wage isn’t to help get people out of poverty, but to help the country’s economy grow. It might be seen as a win-win for the government but it’s not for all those people who are losing their jobs. Each state would have to have a different minimum wage because if they’re all raised to $15 like Biden wishes to, some states will benefit more than others since it costs more to live in some cities than in others (Ember, Sydney). 

Some people actually make $15 an hour at their full-time jobs and still require government assistance because they don’t make enough. “For 40 hours a week, Jessica Ramirez, 26, makes $15.65 an hour at the Amazon warehouse in Fresno. She is the primary breadwinner for herself, her partner and her five children, but even with food stamps and occasional gig work, she said, her wage is barely enough for them to get by.” (Ember, Sydney) Jessica, like many other single and married parents won’t fall into the category of “ending poverty”, they will remain there and just be in a better situation then before or they might even have new problems arise such as not qualifying for certain benefits because their income is “too high”. Raising the minimum wage in the country might seem like an efficient solution but when you really look into it, it helps a few people but brings up more problems for people.

Works cited

DeParle, Jason. “Minimum Wage Hike Would Help Poverty but Cost Jobs, Budget Office Says.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Feb. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/02/08/us/politics/minimum-wage-cbo.html?referrer=masthead.

Ember, Sydney. “How a Minimum-Wage Increase Is Being Felt in a Low-Wage City.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 14 Feb. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/02/14/business/economy/minimum-wage-fresno-california.html?referrer=masthead.

Polonio, Melanie. “Maritza Vasquez Experience.” 16 Feb. 2021. 

“A Portrait of Oregon’s Minimum Wage Workers.” Oregon Center for Public Policy, 17 Dec. 2019, www.ocpp.org/2019/12/17/portrait-oregon-minimum-wage-workers/. 

Reflection

I chose to speak about minimum wage because it’s a topic many people briefly pass and don’t recognize how important it really is. Raising and lowering always affects people negatively but people often thing because it’s increasing it is a good thing. So, I chose to bring to light the bad effects of raising minimum wage. People think they’re making more money so they’re fine but due to inflation eventually so will everything else making it seem as if nothing ever changed.

When writing this op-ed, I decided to use pathos when using my aunts’ interview. It makes readers see how it can impact a family and it’s a more emotional source. I then also used a pie chart showing logos that proved my point that minimum wage workers aren’t always the families we think they are. Bt using these two I helped show my side that I don’t think minimum wage should be raised without directly saying it. When I read an article if they use evidence in a way that gears me towards a side instead of them stating it because the entire time, I will try to counter their claims. So, when writing my op-ed, I took this into consideration and wrote in a way that’ll convince me.

My targeted audience for my op-ed would have to people who are neutral sided in this argument. This will help direct them to one side and if the right person reads it, prevent it from becoming a law. This issue I wrote about can take a big toll on our economy which is probably why Biden wants to enforce it. If he is able to raise the countries minimum wage to $15, places that recive as low as $9 will feel like they’re making way more money and they will start spending more. If they spend more money on items, it helps the economy grow which at the end is mostly beneficial for the country and not the people. The people losing their jobs, like my aunt did, aren’t taken into consideration. As a firsthand witness on how families can be impacted, it’s no worth it because luckily my aunt found another job, but some people won’t be able to leaving their entire family with the possibility of becom