Dear next President,

The minimum wage needs to be raised to $15 dollars an hour. Anything less than $15 isn’t enough to support a family in the United States. Many workers in America are barely surviving with the income they get even with being on public assistance.

Grocery prices are increasing, clothing prices are increasing, essential product prices that you need everyday are increasing, however Americans income isn’t. For instance, in the state of New York the minimum wage is $9.00 per hour. A tube of toothpaste costs $3.40 and a bottle of Listerine mouthwash costs $5.92. You work for an hour and for that hour you barely get paid enough to buy toothpaste and Listerine. If one works 5 hours a day 5 days a week at the end of the week on Friday they will have earned $225. Before you even get your check, taxes have been taken out by two different sources, federal and state. After that you will have about $180. That’s not enough for one to pay bills, buy food, clothing, and essential needs.

If the minimum wage increased, people wouldn’t need that much public assistance. With the minimum wage being $15, citizens would have enough money to buy everything they need and still have money left for selfish desires or to save for the future. Raising the wage would reduce race and gender inequality. Men wouldn’t be the ones making the most money all the time and having to take care of the family financially because he makes $20 and and his wife makes $9.75.

Also believe it or not “raising the minimum wage would reduce crime” this is a fact also stated on ProCon.org.  Drug dealers, prostitutes, and all the other under the table jobs would decrease. If people could make nearly as much as they make illegally legally, they would just get legal jobs. It would save them the trouble and they wouldn’t have to worry about going the jail, looking out for police, or risking their lives trying to feed their family.

Others may disagree with me and say “raising the minimum wage would decrease high school enrollments and would increase high school dropouts”. This is highly untrue. Someone who works at McDonald’s making $15 an hour isn’t going to drop out of high school and work at McDonald’s for a life career. They’re going to save up that $15 an hour to pay for college tuition so when they graduate from college, they have a career with a professional job making even more money. If they get paid $15 dollars at McDonald’s, imagine what they would get paid for a job at an office desk. Just think of all the greatness raising the minimum wage would bring. Do you think you could make that adjustment for the hardworking citizens of the United States?

Sincerely,

Jazmine

Work cited:

ProCon.org. "Minimum Wage ProCon.org." ProCon.org. 14 July 2016, 11:57 a.m., minimum-wage.procon.org/

Photo credit equals,Shamus Cooke Global Research

Sat, 18 Apr 2015 00:00 UTC

Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/27/why-we-should-raise-the-minimum-wage-commentary.html

Monday, 27 Apr 2015 | 10:02 AM ET