Why the United States Federal Government Needs to Change Our Minimum Wage to a Living Wage.

Despite the best efforts of many Americans, low-wage workers are falling further and further behind. According to a new Oxfam interactive map, with data supplied by the EPI (Economic Policy Institute), the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr is locking millions, most notably women of color and single parents in poverty. The way we see it, if you work hard, you should earn enough to get by; and right now, the place to start is to raise this poverty wage. The bump from $290 a week to $600 a week would lift millions of families out of poverty. The most recent data pertaining to this issue was collected in 2019, by the EPI (Economic Policy Institute), stating that more than a quarter of the workforce, 40 million workers would see a raise in wages. Due to these circumstances we feel that raising the minimum wage to $15/hr would greatly improve the lives of Americans.

Now that you are able to understand how this wage increase will help Americans, I will go into detail on how the current wages in America are failing. The timeline beginning from the present date to the past decade, the minimum wage has failed to keep up with inflation, failed to keep up with average wages, and most dramatically, failed to keep up with incomes of the top 1 percent and CEOs, contributing to America’s growing inequality, this information is all according to the data analyzed by UC…