Dear future President,

Many people come to this nation to pursue their dream of living a better life. How are they able to live a better life when they are earning lower than minimum wages? It becomes much more difficult when you are raising three children on the minimum wage. It becomes much more worse when the boss has the right to choose the wages for his employees and decides to pay lower than minimum wage. Minimum wage is the lowest amount of money that a boss can pay to their employees for an hour. With the minimum wage in a fast food restaurant in NYC an immigrant's family can survive with the support of the government, but not with the minimum wages from the independent business. I believe that increasing the minimum wage in the fast-food restaurant to $15 per hour, as New York City is doing, will not be a great idea as it can decrease the amount of jobs in this country and increase the price of the product, but creating the law to have similar wages in independent business as in fast food restaurant or increasing the federal wages can pull many immigrants family out of poverty.

Increasing minimum wages in the fast-food restaurant can drive many other small or independent owner out of business which will lead millions of others being jobless. According to an article “With minimum wage rising, is America ready for $15-an-hour working world?” by Don Lee from Los Angeles Times, “Business owners warn it will hurt them during times when the economy slumps and people stop buying the things they sell. They say it will drive small employers out of business and lead to millions of people being let go from jobs.” When the business owners are being forced to pay $15 an hour for each of their employees; it leads the owners to increase the price of their products. Increasing the price of the products will make the people stop buying their products. Which leads the owners not being able to pay their employees and firing them and leading them to out of business. Being out of business makes the employees jobless. Furthermore, in the same article, it was mention that, “The Congressional Budget Office did a study last year. It found that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would lead to a half-million jobs lost. At $15 an hour, millions of jobs could be lost.” From this study, we can conclude that raising the minimum wages to even $10.10 an hour lead half millions of Americans jobless. If raising it to $10.10 have this much impact, imagine $15 an hour which can lead not half-millions, but millions jobless. According to another article, “Fast-food protesters want minimum wage increase on front burner” by Joseph Pisani said a person like Dominique McCrae, who serves fried chicken and biscuits at a Bojangles' restaurant for $7.55 an hour, joined a protest outside a McDonald's in Durham, North Carolina. Her pay is not enough to cover rent or diapers for her child, the 23-year-old said. She dropped out of college to care for her grandfather, making finances tight. People like Dominique McCrae received slightly higher than the federal minimum wage which is $7.25 and can’t afford to pay their rent and provide for their children's needs.

I believe that increasing the minimum wages in the fast-food restaurant to $15 per hour will not be a great idea as it can decrease the amount of jobs in this country and increase the price of the product. However, creating the law to have similar wages in independent business as in fast food restaurant or increasing the federal wages can pull many immigrant families out of poverty. A possible solution to this problem can be that not increasing the fast food restaurant minimum wages to $15 an hour, but to increase the federal minimum wages from $7.25 to higher or equal to minimum wages in the fast food restaurant. Another possible solution as well is to pass laws for the small or independent business owner so they would pay their employee fair amount such as higher than $10 per hour, not any lower. To save millions of families not going to poverty or being a jobless, dear President, please take action as soon possible.

Sincerely,

A immigrants student whose father earns $8 an hour and is providing for three children as well as his own father and mother.  

Resources 

https://newsela.com/articles/procon-wages/id/2063/

https://newsela.com/articles/election-minwage/id/12981/

https://newsela.com/articles/minwage-effect/id/10603/