In Atlanta, 63% of the hourly jobs pay less than $10.50/hr and 29% of the jobs pay less than $7.50.
Also, 6 out of the 10 fastest growing jobs in Atlanta pay less than $10.00 an hour. It costs a single adult approximately $1,449 a month to live a self-sufficient life in Atlanta, and it costs an adult with 2 young children approximately $3,601 a month. Although it has been suggested in the power point that the minimum wage should be raised to $10.00 an hour to better suit working class families, I'm not quite sure this would be the great fix that many believe. I think that raising the minimum wage so significantly would just lead to a decrease in the number that can be employed and an increase in the closing of small businesses. Although the workers would be more comfortable, the business owners would be striving to make ends meet to keep their business afloat. The current federal minimum wage is set at $7.25 and has been since July 24, 2009, and the current minimum wage in Georgia is $5.15. Of the workers in Georgia making $5.15 an hour, 85% of them are over the age of 20, and 51% of them are full-time employees. The current minimum rate for tipped workers is $2.13 an hour.
As far as our original question #5 is concerned, I am pleased to see that I did not include increasing the minimum wage as my first thoughts as to what should be done about poverty. I am very interested to find other proposed solutions, though. This is definitely not one of them in my book.
Do you think that the minimum wage should be increased?
Yes I believe minimum wage should be increases because a family of three cannot even survive on the current minimum wage. Therefore, in order to help resolve the poverty issue, I believe that the government needs to look into these statistics and try to do more to help out.
ReplyDeletethis is an interesting question. Based off of our budget project, your mother was working a $10 per hour job, full time and she still did not have the ability to "make ends meets". it is clear that the minimum wages needs to be higher, but from my research $10 per hour, clearly would not do. It would have to be sustainly more in order for a single mother to have a living, but I truly believe that the government or corporations are not willing to allow such a raise in the wage because they would lose in profit. In order to give in one area, something has to be taken away in another or at least that is what they would want you to think.
ReplyDeleteAmber, this is true that maybe your mother in your budget project did not make enough to make ends meet, however, the factor of governmental aid was not used. I feel like that government should increase their use of WIC and such instead of increasing the minimum wage.
ReplyDeleteI really dont know if min wage should be increased or not. I defintely dont think it should be heavily increased, but I believe that even a small increase in minimum wage would help..
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