Minimum Wage

                                                                                                              May 1 2015

Minimum Wage
Grannt Epstein



       The last time the federal minimum wage was raised was back last increased on July 24, 2009, when it rose from $6.55 to $7.25 (according to the website which linked here). That was  six years ago. Six years. To put that in perspective six years ago teenagers who just entered High-school as a nooby Freshmen are now out of collage looking for a job on the still struggling market, and yet I sit here today with the same $7.25 per hour, 
      
      In the article "Why We Should Raise the Minimum Wage" by CNBC says that raising the minimum wage from $7.25  to $10.10 will lift "900,000 people out of poverty" which is an extraordinary thing to accomplish. That is nearly one million people. One million people is one and every three hundred people.  This effects more people than you might first originally think. It has even effected me.

      My friends father first graduated collage in the late 80's and had to work for a minimum wage job while he was looking for a job that fit his degree. It was like he was a leaf blowing in the wind, and he couldn't stop. He struggled. For a few years. Do you think that if he had an extra three dollars every hour, that maybe he wouldn't have to live on the borderline? Because that 900,000 would deferentially need it. But that is mainly what this article leaves out. 

      That people are people. All 900,000 is is a number. But to hear a story is different, which is what the article does wrong in my opinion.
  
      The article also mentions that there are some successes as well as fails. This is true in my life. I feel like many times it doesn't necessarily need to be the big victory, rather it can be a gradual change. You don't have to move a mountain all at once, rather you can move a pebble at a time. 

     The article shows these small victories when talking about things like how "Seattle, Washington.....[showed] that the minimum wage could be raised to as much as $15 dollars an hour". This is like how I was able to reach my goal. I wanted to run a 5k in less than 20 minutes. I did this not looking at the 20 every race and trying to brake it, rather I would go every race and try and take 10-30 seconds off. Guess what? It worked.

     Although it took me a while, I finally did break 20 and got 19:32. It was because like the article said to look at the small steps which will lead you to concur the mountain.