Increased Minimum Wage Benefits and Effects

An increase in minimum wage to $10.10 would not only be beneficial to the employees that would be earning the money, but there are social economic benefits as well. An increase in minimum wage would decrease income inequality. Income inequality, the gap between the rich and everyone else, else has been growing rapidly over the last few decades. Shrinking this income inequality would allow our economy to become more balanced and would move in the right direction of positively affecting social economics. 

One common assumption that is all over the Internet and media today as to why minimum wage shouldn’t be increased is because these workers are lazy. While that may be the case for some, it is wrong for people to sit on their high horse and deem 1.6 million people as lazy while they earn their higher wage salary. 

A lot of people also think that raising the minimum wage will be detrimental to companies and force them to make strict cuts. In 2014, Express Employment Professionals did a survey of more than 1,200 business owners and HR professionals asking them if the minimum wage was increased to $10.10 would they let employees go, reduce future hiring, or raise prices for goods and services. When it came to letting employees go, eighty one percent said that they would not fire them. Sixty one percent of employers said that they would not reduce future hiring. Lastly, forty nine percent said they wouldn’t raise prices for goods and services. This survey shows that companies may not have to make the strict and harsh cuts that would be detrimental to their businesses.