Democrat: Increasing Minimum Wage By: Mary Gulla, Jordan Coop, Attra Shamon, Craig Garwood 2nd Hour

Pros of Increasing Minimum Wage Raising the minimum wage means minimum wage workers have more money to spend which means more money ripples throughout the economy as minimum wage employees are able to spend more.

Pros of Increasing Minimum Wage Cont. Employees who are making a higher minimum wage feel more comfortable and satisfied in their minimum wage jobs meaning they are less likely to quit. This means there would be a lower turnover rate, which results in fewer expenses to hire and train new employees.

Pros of Increasing Minimum Wage Cont. There will be more opportunities for jobs because if these minimum wage employees are spending more, then businesses are earning more and need to hire more employees to keep up with the increased sales from the minimum wage employees who are buying more.

Pros of Increasing Minimum Wage Cont. Employees surviving at minimum wage are also often the same people who must rely on additional support of government run social programs to support themselves and their families on such a small amount of income. Raising minimum wage means some of these people would be able to better support themselves without leaning as heavily on social programs and this would ultimately mean lower taxes or a reallocation of those funds to support other needs.

Pros of Increasing Minimum Wage Cont. Increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would raise almost a million people above the poverty line. Also, families earning more than $7.25 but below $10.10 who are barely above the poverty threshold would be lifted up as well. There are 17 million workers who earn less than $10.10 an hour who would directly benefit from the increase to $10.10. Another 11 million workers would indirectly benefit from raising the current minimum wage as their wages would increase relative to the difference that their wages were from the old minimum wage.

Of our nation's more than 25 million low-wage workers who would benefit from an increase—nine million who are parents supporting roughly 14 million children —most are paid wages so low that they bring home incomes below or just above the federal poverty level. Most are not teenagers; their average age is 35. It's wrong that someone in the United States of America who works hard for long hours to support their family can still be stuck in poverty today. It is time for Congress to give the working poor a raise and take the politics out of this issue by linking future increases in the minimum wage to the cost of living.