Mr./ Ms. President

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr./ Ms. President:

My name is Dylan and I am a high school sophomore from Minnetonka, MN. I am writing you to express my concerns about the current minimum wage. As you are aware, the cost for living in the U.S. continues to rise each year, everything from gas to food has increased in price. But yet for some reason the workers are not making any more money in order to keep up with all of the increased expenses. With companies making millions of dollars, why is it that the actual people doing the work can barely make ends meet? According to CBS news “Currently as of Jan 2016 the average minimum wage in the U.S is $7.25”. The average full time employee works 40 hours a week, which adds up to about $1,160 per month. But with the average cost for rent or mortgage being $1,200 a month, how are these workers supposed to pay for rent, yet also have enough leftover to pay for food, insurance, education, transportation, gas, and many other things? It’s not possible. The reason I feel so strongly about this issue is that us teenagers are typically the ones making minimum wage. We are now just starting our adult life and need all the support that we can get to be able to afford basic living expenses, and become successful adults.

Unfortunately, a low minimum wage can lead lots of young adults to go down the wrong path in life. Many people are unable to pay their monthly expenses even though they have a full time job. This can lead them to turn to drug dealing and crime in order to make ends meet. Almost everyone that is either selling drugs or stealing is in it for the money. But if we just increased how much money they earned at their job, it would save us millions of dollars in paying for the crimes they commit. Many lives would be saved due to the decrease in crime. Also paying someone more would most likely lead that person to become a better worker, which in turn would increase the company's productivity and make the company more money.

An opposed view on this topic would be that if the minimum wage goes up, small businesses would go out of business. This is not true though because I believe that raising the minimum wage would help the economy by allowing people to spend more money to support our businesses and keep them profitable. Also if the minimum wage was increased more people would want to get jobs and the businesses would get more work done, which would make them more money.

Raising the minimum wage would also reduce the need for government aid and welfare since more people would be able to get jobs and be able to pay their bills on their own. By helping families survive on their own without government assistance would increase their quality of life, making for a happier family life, and less broken families caused by financial strain.

Teenagers such as me and my peers are the future of this country. If we can’t make it through the hardest years of our lives on our own then there will be no future at all. Only a couple more dollars an hour can make a huge difference, and in many cases can be the deciding factor between success and failure.

Sincerely yours,

Dylan