Groups from opposite ends of the political spectrum have found common ground around the effort to raise the minimum wage. A collection of proposals have been made to give the administration a direction to take the fight against poverty. This has surprised the public that such opposing groups have been able to develop a substantial idea of how to fight poverty in the States. Despite some expected differences in how to enact a raise of the minimum wage, both parties champion an increase in the minimum wage. Differences include: the left side blames reasons out of anyone's control on creating poverty while the right places more weight on personal responsibility. The two sides are moving closer together and hopefully soon they will be close enough to combine influence to support raising the minimum wage.
Eduardo Porter, NY Times
Does the article explain what beyond raising a minimum wage they hope to do? Like, helping them find jobs or job skills training? I think raising a minimum wage will help those who already have the skill to have a job but it still leaves hundreds of impoverished people who don't have the knowledge base to gain a job. (Would you please add a link to the article?)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/03/business/finding-common-political-ground-on-poverty.html?_r=0
ReplyDeleteHere's the link!
It is great that the two sides were able to put away their differences and come to an agreement. Do they both agree on how much to raise minimum wage? The downside to raising the minimum wage is that less workers will be demanded due to a higher price. Therefore, the amount they are raising it by can make a huge difference.
ReplyDeleteThe fight against poverty is definitely a very important one. However, the thought of raising the minimum wage worries me because increasing the minimum wage may cause an increase in unemployment, as the money for higher wages has to come from somewhere. Minimum wage jobs are not meant for being long-term jobs for people. This is why it's important to increase access to programs that will help people learn valuable skills that will get them higher paying jobs.
ReplyDeleteI like that both sides are able to come together on something, but I wish it was something other than the minimum wage. Honestly, the minimum wage causes unemployment and inflation. It also has several benefits, but they are somewhat cancelled out by the negative side effects. I wish that the sides would come together on issues that actually could cause a greater difference such as adopting pro-poor growth and introducing training to low skilled impoverished workers.
ReplyDeleteIt is definitely interesting to see the two sides coming together for a common goal, as we've seen how rare that is especially over these past two presidential terms. However, I disagree with the notion of significantly raising the minimum wage. The minimum wage was initially instituted to provide some sort of assistance for laborers who work in jobs that require little to no skill to perform. Raising the minimum wage increases labor costs for businesses which in turn requires layoffs and an increased unemployment rate. I think we need to be very cautious with anything that may affect the minimum wage.
ReplyDeleteThis agreement among the two sides may reflect people's awareness of the large disparity between wealthy and poor. I don't know much raising the minimum wage will be able to support this problem, or will it cause unemployment in increase significantly. We discussed this in class, and how the responsiveness of unemployment to increase in minimum wage may not be as elastic as one may expect. We will see...
ReplyDeleteIt's good to read that a compromise between the two sides is getting closer, because raising the minimum wage will help families in poverty support their families better, but as Samuel noted it can also create more unemployment because with higher wages means the skills required for those wages becomes greater and families in poverty may not have the access to gain those extra skills so it'll be interesting to see where this goes.
ReplyDeleteI am very happy to hear that such contradicting groups of people have agreed that the minimum wage needs to rise. It is not often that opposing political groups find any sort of common ground, but when dealing with something as important as poverty, finding common ground and attacking that issue as a team is the only way something will get done. Although they have agreed that the minimum wage needs to rise, I am very curious to see how they agree to raise the minimum wage.
ReplyDelete