Raise the Minimum Wage – Grade 10, Judy

Raise the Minimum Wage – Grade 10, Judy

This well-researched argumentative essay is written by one of my grade 10 students. The essay presents three well-researched reasons as to why the Ontario government must increase the minimum wage. The essay follows the rules of a standard five-paragraph essay, which is an acceptable format for high school. The essay begins with interesting data that can grab readers’ attention, each body paragraph starts with a clear topic sentence, and clear transitions are applied effectively to join the paragraphs together. Finally, the writer has quoted various sources in support of the points made in the essay.

Raise the Minimum Wage; Raise Equality

According to Statistics Canada, the poverty line for a single adult in Canada is $19,930 and the poverty line of a lone parent with one child under 6 years old is $28,185. A minimum wage earner working 35 hours a week for the full year would have an earning of $20,708, barely passing the poverty line. Minimum wage is designed to ensure workers in unskilled jobs have basic living standards. Since the current minimum wage is not enough to keep workers out of poverty completely, we should increase our minimum wage. Kathleen Wayne, the Ontario premier, announced on May 30th, 2017 to increase the minimum wage up to $15 per hour in the next 18 months. Increasing the minimum wage is the best way to improve our economy and to keep workers away from poverty.

Increasing the minimum wage would reduce government welfare spending. The Canadian government spends large amounts of money on welfare programs such as health care, social security, and food stamps. However, when the minimum wage increases, low-income workers would decrease their reliance on welfare programs. The Center for American Progress reported in 2014 that raising the minimum wage by 6% would decrease the government spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) by 6%, which is about $4.6 billion. The government would reduce spending a significant amount of money on social programs. As a result, the tax rate in Canada would decrease and everyday taxpayers would feel less pressure.

Apart from reducing government spending, increasing the minimum wage would increase worker productivity and reduce employee turnover. According to Alan Manning, the professor of economics at the London School of Economics, the increase in the minimum wage makes work become more attractive and labour turnover rates and absenteeism decline. Since businesses would pay more to the workers, more people would look for jobs with minimum wage and the competition between workers would increase. Consequently, workers may feel like they need to work a bit harder to avoid unfavourable consequences, such as being replaced by other workers. A national poll by American Sustainable Business Council showed that 53% of small business owners agree that with a higher minimum wage, businesses would benefit from lower employee turnover and increased productivity and customer satisfaction. Increasing the minimum wage would not only benefit the employees but also the business owners.

However, opponents say that many businesses cannot afford to pay their employees more, and raising the minimum wage would force businesses to lay off employees and increase unemployment rates. Although the fear by the opponents is reasonable, increasing the minimum wage does not necessarily reduce employment. David Card and Alan Krueger, professors of economics at the University of California and Princeton University, argues that the actual evidence linking increasing the minimum wage and unemployment is weak. Moreover, their research data shows that increasing the minimum wage might even increase the employment rate. Businesses can quickly adapt to the new minimum wage, and the concerns for unemployment is unnecessary.

Another benefit of increasing the minimum wage would be an increase in consumer purchasing power, which can boost the economy. The national poll from the American Sustainable Business Council showed that 58% of small business employers say that raising the minimum wage would increase consumer purchasing power in the economy. If low-income workers are beginning to earn more, they will use that money to improve their living standards. Consequently, the consumers’ purchasing power may increase, and businesses may benefit from the increase in minimum wage.

By increasing the minimum wage, the Canadian economy will benefit significantly. Workers will work harder, small businesses would have more customers, and everyday taxpayers would face less pressure. As a society, we should support the Ontario government’s decision of increasing the minimum wage. Certainly, raising the minimum wage will help low-income workers to live a much better life.