Workers Need a Living Wage Essay -- Its Time to Raise the Minimum Wag

Its 600am and that annoying beep of your alarm is ringing in your ears. You get up, start the coffee maker, shower, and get dressed in your achievement attire. You start your car and back out of your drive-way before noticing that youre running on the last fumes of your tank. You drive to nearest gas station where you put one across gas prices have, once again, risen.The aforementioned scenario is only one of many examples of the depreciating value of the dollar. In fact, in the past five years, the CPI-U has increased from 168.8 to 190.7 - thats a 12.97% inflationary increase (Historical CPI) Sure, to Corporate Joe in his fancy sports car, a fewer extra pennies for gas isnt much, but what about the school janitor who is move to successfully raise a family of four on borderline prosecute? The most immediate reality behind life-time Wage organizing is the outstanding erosion of the minimum operate. Even with the 1996 increase to $5.15 an hour the buying index finger of the minimum wage is still 30 percent below its pate in 1968. This is true despite the fact the economy was about liter percent more productive than in 1968. A minimum wage that had kept pace with productivity gains would be roughly $11.20 today (Pollin and Luce, 58). In fact, in 2003 the poverty rate rose from 12.1 to 12.5 percent leaving 35.9 million people at or below the poverty line of $18,660 for a family of four (U.S. Census Bureau). These 35.9 million people trudge through their manual(a) labor occupations day in and day out only to specify the (few) dollars they earn slowly depreciate in value. In 1906, John Ryan, propose of the living wage, wrote Every man who is willing to work, has, therefore an inborn chasten to sustenance from the earth and on reasonable terms or conditio... ...ome of the monetary burden they experience. With the increasingly inflating dollar and therefore the depreciating value of the minimum wage, an implementation of a universal living wage would be the addition thing to do.Works CitedHistorical Consumer Price Index. Historical CPI. 2003. 4 march 2015. Pollin, Robert and Stephanie Luce. The Living Wage Building A Fair Economy. smart York New Press, 1998.U.S. Census Bureau. Poverty 2003 Highlights. 26 August 2004. 25 February 2015.Glickman, Lawrence. A Living Wage American Workers and the Making of a Consumer Society. Ithaca, NY Cornell University Press, 1997.Acorn.org. ACORN About Acorn. 2005. 2 exhibit 2015.