Dear future president,

Today, more and more hardworking Americans are not getting the pay they deserve. The minimum wage needs to be raised because the current minimum wage is not a wage that people can live off of and raising the minimum wage would help the United States economy.

The minimum wage needs to be raised because it is not a wage that people can live off of. Currently, the living wage for one adult living in San Francisco is $14.80 per hour(Glasmeier). The current minimum wage is only $9.00 an hour which makes a difference of $5.80 that they do not get paid per hour that they should(Glasmeier). This means that if somebody worked 8 hours a day for 5 days a week they would get underpaid around $232 per week. This adds up to around $928 a month and over a year they would have been underpaid around a total of $11,971.20, assuming that they only get off on Saturdays, Sundays, Christmas Day, New Year's Day, and Thanksgiving Day. That money should be paid to them so that they will be able to afford houses, pay for a car, buy clothes, and get food and water. If the minimum wage is not raised and these hard-workers continue to get underpaid, then more and more people will be kicked out of their houses and forced to live on the streets.

The minimum wage needs to be raised because it would greatly help the United States economy. Even if the minimum wage was raised to just $10.10 an hour, the US economy would do way better. If the minimum wage was raised to $10.10 and there are about 28 million Americans who get the raise, that puts out $35 billion to people who will then go around and spend it. This will also help the economy because the more money that someone makes, the more they have to pay in taxes. This will also help the economy because the parent’s who get the raise will be able to help get their children educated and those children could grow up to get a job and pay taxes. After all, children are the future.

Some Americans believe that raising the minimum wage will hurt small businesses because it will cause the businesses to have another cost to worry about (How to Counter the Argument That Minimum Wage Increases…). Small business owners are afraid of the minimum wage getting raised because it could cause them to cut staff, pass the cost onto their customer’s, or even shut down (How to Counter the Argument That Minimum Wage Increases…). Although these are very real concern’s, there are a couple ways to get over them. First, with more people getting raises, they will be able to shop more which could cause sales to go up. Second, figure out what the peak hours are for the business. For example, if you rarely get sales before ten or after six, adjust your hours so that they work less to compensate for the extra pay when they are working.

If the minimum wage does not get raised soon, there will be more people living on the streets and the economy will continue to get worse and worse. Raising the minimum wage will help single parents to sleep a little easier and know that they will be able to provide for their children. Raising the minimum wage will help to decrease the growing debt. Raising the minimum wage needs to happen soon or we risk our future. 

Thank you for reading this and hopefully the future Mr. or Mrs. President will read this and change something fast to help raise the minimum wage. 

Sincerely,
Dev 

Glasmeier, Amy K., Dr., and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Living Wage Calculation for San Francisco County, California." Living Wage Calculator -. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2016. Web. 3 Nov. 2016.

Think Progress. "10 Reasons to Raise the Minimum Wage (with Charts)." Alternet. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Nov. 2016.

“How to Counter the Argument That Minimum Wage Increases…” Quora. N.P., n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2016.