Americans Yearn for a Higher Minnimum Wage
- Rowan Gehman
- 7 hours ago
- 4 min read
(UNDISCLOSED LOCATION) — The situation regarding pay in the United States is deteriorating due to inaction. Obvious monopolies have outsized influence over the rest of the economy, and Congress couldn't care less about this glaring issue. In essence, not enforcing monopoly laws has bitten this country, and it isn't the corporations that are feeling it.
According to the 2024 Bureau of Labor Statistics, 82,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, and 760,000 workers were paid wages below the federal minimum due to various loopholes, such as the tipped worker minimum wage. This data is two years old, but it gives you a snapshot of the economy.
This data paints a pretty tragic picture. 842,000 people make below or exactly the minimum wage. Which minimum does not imply it is a survivable income; it is only the legal floor for wages. Though even with it being the floor, some business models are able to break through bedrock and pay less than this!
Subsisting on less than or exactly $7.25 an hour is borderline impossible. The pay rate itself disallows gift-giving, substantial relationships, and self-care. There are secondary cycles you can break into, too. This contributes to a less socially minded society, which decreases third space usage and requires places like parks and libraries to cut back on programs, services, and more.
The cycle of health issues eating away at any savings, having no savings, and then having more medical issues is a common occurrence as a result of the minimum wage being $7.25 an hour. There is a similar pathway that follows when it comes to car maintenance, house maintenance, appliances, or really any asset with a depreciation factor, the ability to mechanically fail, or structurally fail.
All of these issues are tied to an indecisive Congress and an executive branch hell-bent on scraping the last vestiges of value from the federal government. Nobody within the current establishment is planning to save the US economy. It is too profitable for the establishment democrats and republicans to leave the economy as an exploitative mess of monopolisation and consolidation.
This is because their donors are actually these very same monopolies, whether they be private prisons or tech giants; they all benefit from the development of an underclass subsisting off of poverty wages. After all, you cannot ask for more if you do not have the time to wonder what “more” looks like.
In my family, my mother makes around a dollar more than minimum wage. In any scenario where we did not have the support of others, this pay would never amount to enough to support me, my brother, and my mother.
Presently, the job is only really able to act as a supplement to already existing wealth accumulated by my family. It is in no way enough to feed three people or house them without significant sacrifices to health, safety, and dignity.
This becomes even clearer when calculating what the minimum wage from 1968 would look like in 2026, when adjusted for inflation. The minimum wage would be around $24 an hour. This number can also be observed by calculating the minimum wage amount using productivity.
I will admit this much: I am not an economist. However, I can recognise the present and preventable tragedy that is visited upon the country. Approximately 700,000 people sleep outside every night, and there is no question in my mind that raising the minimum wage to $24 an hour would do wonders to slash this number.
Obviously, there are many reforms that would need to supplement a minimum wage increase. Namely, tenant union rights, establishment of rent guidelines boards, rent control measures, housing and urban development reform, and finally, product pricing regulatory enforcement. That last one is very important because it would prevent corporate dynamic pricing from gouging the newly raised wages of the population. It would also force monopolies to price in a non-predatory way.
The non-predatory nature of a reformed economy would ensure the lasting effect of the raised minimum wage on the population. Necessities would no longer be priced in a manner that locks people out of other necessities, and health and safety would no longer be contingent on how much money they make.
I feel as though if the federal government, which has existed for 250 years, did ever value the lives of its citizens, it would seek to implement the very policies put forward within this article. The mere fact that it has not moved in a people-oriented direction, toward a democratized economy, tells me that the only thing valued by the current federal government is the extraction, accumulation, and consolidation of wealth into the hands of the very few oligarchs.
In essence, I believe it is not just logical, but prudent to raise the minimum wage! Our society as a whole would benefit, and the reverberations of such an act would be felt across the world. Millions of families would be lifted out of poverty; they would finally have income go towards all of their needs and some of their wants, rather than choosing between some needs and others.
This would directly benefit small businesses as well, as their customer base increases alongside the raised minimum wage. More people making more money means more customers spending more money, and in an increasingly hostile environment for people and small businesses alike, a raised minimum wage should be attractive!
Hopefully, I have impressed upon you the need for a higher minimum wage, and that you will go out to the people that surround you with conviction to tell them of this. After all, the only way we will ever get more is if we ask for it, loudly, clearly, and consistently.
Works cited
Paragraph 1 - Bureau of Labor Statistics - 2024
Paragraph 2 - AFL-CIO - 2026
