Should the federal minimum wage be raised?

INTRODUCTION

Employees at stores and fast food restaurants such as Walgreens, Wendy’s, Sears, and McDonald’s went on strike in early December of 2013 expressing frustration over the minimum wage. Their argument is that the minimum wage is not high enough to cover basic costs of living in this country. Cities across the United States, like Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and New York, all saw hundreds of employees from such industries displaying frustrations by picketing and striking.

In July 2019, the House of Representatives passed the Raise the Wage Act, which would gradually increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. While this did not pass the Senate, the issue of a $15 minimum wage became a campaign promise for Democrats during the 2020 election cycle. While reintroduced in the 117th Congress, the Raise the Wage Act has yet to pass or be signed into law.

The federal minimum wage was raised to $7.25 (roughly $15,000 annually) in 2009, by Congress. Some workers receiving minimum wage are demanding it be raised to $15 dollars an hour. A number of Congressional members are proposing the wage be raised to $10.10 while opponents of raising the minimum wage are concerned it will result in employee layoffs and increased costs to consumers to offset paying for increased wages.

This deliberation looks at the debate over raising the minimum wage including arguments about free markets, state and local laws, and its possible impacts on inflation, low-wage workers, and small businesses. Students will use primary-source video clips to analyze the arguments on both sides of the issue and answer the question: Should the federal minimum wage be raised?

Objectives and Outcomes

  • Students will be able to describe key vocabulary terms associated with increasing the minimum wage such as inflation, poverty line, mandate, and cost of living.

  • Students will identify and explain possible impacts of increasing the minimum wage.

  • Students will be able to evaluate arguments relating to increasing the minimum wage and formulate an opinion on this question.