The Working Poor, The Bare Minimum
$15 an hour has long been touted by the working poor as the ideal minimum living wage going back to at least 2015. It is now 2020 and some states are just now seeing a little more than $8 an hour, a little more than $5 for tipped employees.
The federal minimum wage hasn't increased in the past ten years. But everything else has like rents/mortgages, groceries, gas... And while hourly workers receive their tiny raises in paychecks, most will see a cut in their hours as well, only to be paid the same or even less than before.
On one side of the coin, one can argue that a minimum wage is for the teenager, the high schooler, and was never meant for adults with whole families. But the fact of the matter is that young adults as well as senior citizens coming out of retirement are competing for those jobs, those wages. On the contrary, one can say that the minimum wage keeps a person in poverty, in a dead-end position, causing low-quality production as well as dissatisfied consumers. And a slightly larger Earned Income Tax Credit during tax refunds is only a band-aid on a gushing sore. The resources are available, the money, a decent wage are all available... too bad too many states are void of decency. Period.
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