All those years of flipping burgers may finally pay off. Sort of.
In last week’s State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama proposed raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 per hour nationwide by the end of 2015.
In California, the current minimum wage is set at $8 an hour. In the City of San Francisco, the minimum wage is at a whopping $10.55. Our minimum wages are set higher because of the higher cost of living in our home state.
Rasing the minimum wage reopens old debate of whether increasing wages would stimulate the economy. Companies, on the other hand, argue that the increase in wages hinders their profits and business.
As students with part-time jobs who often get paid at a minimum wage, our editorial board supports Obama’s proposal. We also hope that California raises its own minimum wage to help cover the cost of living here as well.
By increasing the minimum wage, the government is protecting many low-skill jobs. This may hurt some small businesses that must pinch pennies to keep their business afloat, but big business should be able to cover the increased cost of their employees.
Increasing the minimum wage is more about protecting people rather than increasing profits. For businesses, whose sole purpose is to create profit, the potential increase in the minimum wage may drive them to outsource jobs. This is already an ongoing problem in our nation, but a steep increase in minimum wage could escalate it.
A raise in minimum wage could also increase the prices for products and services. In order to compensate for the increase in wages, businesses will have to charge more for their products, meaning that the eggs and butter you buy might go up in price by a few cents, thus hurting the extra spike in your paycheck.
It is safe to say that many minimum wage workers do a lot more than they used too. Many jobs require workers to be able to multi-task and take on bigger workloads because of the cuts in employees. Minimum wage workers deserve the extra pay.
As we stated before, rasing the minimum wage would greatly help college students. The cost of education, as well as everything else, keeps getting more and more expensive. College students compose a lot of the workforce that fills minimum wage jobs. It makes sense to raise it to help us out a little bit.
One of Obama’s original campaign promises from 2008 was to raise minimum wage. We’ve seen how much Obama has come through with that promise in his first term. Whether he will be able to actually go somewhere during his second term remains to be seen.
Hopefully, for our sake, he will.