College Voices
If the Economy is Booming Then Why Aren’t the Wages Too?
The economy is a quandary with the quiddity of an unsolvable anagram. But here we are today, the zest seems to be in the air again accompanied by a slight zephyr because the United States economy is prospering again.
At least, that is what you hear every time you watch the news or read the newspaper. You hate to quibble in a pessimistic manner, but how could you notice wages are scant and the cost of living is steady rising?
One may ask why the minimum wage has not increased a long time ago. Simply, there is not a consensus among the population on the increase of minimum wage.
“A Pew Research Center survey found that fifty-eight percent of Americans supported the increase of the federal minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour, forty-one percent of Americans were against it.”
“The action of raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour is the responsible and assiduous thing to do, especially when the cost of living is soaring, but the advantage of increasing the federal minimum wage for American workers is contingent on where you reside.”
“According to the Pew Research Center, the cost of living fluctuates in a plethora of states. Some of the states with the highest cost of living are San Jose, California, Miami, Florida, New York, New York, Chicago, Illinois, Honolulu, Hawaii, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the states with the lowest cost of living are El Centro, California, Sebring, Florida, Utica-Rome, New York, Danville, Illinois, Non-metro Hawaii, Hawaii, Johnstown, Pennsylvania.”
It is understandable that people would eagerly quaff down the first bit of favorable news that they receive about the condition of the economy, but they can still see and feel the discrepancies. It does not diametrically ameliorate their minds.
I know some people may consider the angst over it to be preposterous, they may have some sensible reasons to feel that way, but it is also rational to accept other people’s qualms over the strength of the economy since it has yet to translate into poor and middle-class Americans pockets.
No one is able to agree on the cause of the wage inertia, but there are some educated guesses: “The swelling benefit costs, decline of labor unions, lagging educational attainment relative to other countries, noncompete clauses and other restrictions on job switching, a large pool of potential workers who are outside the formally defined labor force, and broad employment declines in manufacturing and production sectors and a consequent shift toward job growth in low-wage industries.”
By: Shamar English
