For many Americans the so-called, “American Dream,” is nothing more than a dream due to the financial limitations for many people in this country. How can people aspire to their dreams when they can barely make rent and consume three meals a day? When The Fight for $15 formed 4 years ago the group’s unifying message was clear, no one should work a full time job and worry about if they were going to be able to pay the rent that month, or feed themselves that day. The Fight For $15 movement is obviously a fight that’s goal is to increase the minimum wage for all who work full time jobs, but this wasn’t their only goal. As highlighted on the Fight for $15 website, “For too long, McDonald’s and low-wage employers have made billions of dollars in profit and pushed off costs onto taxpayers, while leaving people like us – the people who do the real work – to struggle to survive” (Fight for $15). The movement now has grown to over 300 cities, on six continents to spread the awareness about the wage and income inequalities, where companies are choosing to neglect their employees and concentrate the wealth to the top sectors of the company. With continuous efforts, the movement has made strides towards addressing the unfairness of the job market. While the movement has, and continues to experience, push back, its resiliency never wanes.
Americans today have made strides from the protests against income inequality by seeing raises in the minimum wage in various states like California, New York, and cities such as Seattle, Portland, and Chicago. This is a great start for the movement; which in 2012, when it first began as a fast food workers’ strike, was barely taken seriously. The continuous efforts of those in the movement have now yielded raises for over 20 million Americans, but the fight cannot stop there, considering the continuous efforts by those who want to bring down the working class (Pac, 2016). When the minimum wage was first instituted in 1938, the pay was .25 cents an hour when Franklin Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. However since the Great Depression, the pay rate has only risen 22 times and unfortunately it has not risen at the same pace as inflation; making it more difficult for some people to afford the basic necessities for themselves or family members (Lester, 2014). These hardships only further motivate the Fight for 15 and justify the need to at least provide a living wage for all full time workers. As reported by the Economic Policy Institute in a 2015 study, even a $12 per hour federal minimum wage can help provide raises for over 35 million workers by 2020. This wage will be helpful for many Americans and is also economically sustainable with that $12 dollar an hour wage being implemented by 2020. “$12.00 in 2020 would equal a modest 10 percent increase from the federal minimum wage at its peak value in 1968…” (Economic Policy Institute, 2015). In 1968 the minimum wage was $1.60 per hour, equivalent to about $10.68 an hour in today’s economic climate, a far more reasonable wage to live off in most cities and equates to just over $22,000 per year. However the most recent proposal to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour, unfortunately came to no avail when Republican’s blocked the bill with their senate vote (Lowery, 2014).
For some critics, they argue that raising the minimum wage would be bad for the economy in the long run, since it could lead to a loss of jobs for poorer families, rather than benefit them. Yet as highlighted on Journalist’s Resources, in most instances right-leaning groups will incorporate data that favors the corporations, whereas left leaning organizations use data that favors workers. However, in the end, nothing changes the fact that we have an overwhelming number of people living in poverty under the current minimum wage. The U.S. Census Bureau has shown that poverty levels have dropped in the past few years, but we still have over 43 million people living in poverty unfortunately (WorldHunger.org, 2016). At the current federal minimum wage, an employee working 40 hours a week would earn just over $15,000 per year, but in most cases this is not enough to live on, especially if you have other mouths to feed beside yourself (Boushey, 2014).
(source: http://inequality.org/income-inequality/)
This struggle can be noticed in cities like New York where the poverty rate, as of 2016, is at about 20 percent, but that poverty level is unfortunately not as low in neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy and East Harlem, that are not predominantly white. This poverty level is especially high for families with children who have only seen a two percent rise in their median incomes from 2014 to 2015 (Jokhakar, 2016). “Despite the slow improvement in the child poverty rate, over half a million New York City children are growing up poor, and a quarter of these children live in 8 of the city’s 59 community districts” (Jokhakar, 2016). A big part of this problem also stems from the rising rent in New York City, which obviously was not rising at a similar increment to societies household incomes. From 2000 to 2012, New York had seen its median rent price rise 75 percent in that 12-year span, this was 30 percent higher than the rest of the country, but the major problem comes from the five percent decrease of the median income in the city (Diehm & Mathias, 2014). As noted in 2012, those making between $20,000 and $40,000 a year were spending 44 percent of their income on rent, and according to federal guidelines those spending over 30 percent of their income on rent were considered to be cost-burdened. This would make it harder to afford the necessities like food, clothing, transportation, and medical attention (Diehm & Mathias, 2014).
On November 29th 2016, protesters again gathered with the hope of continuing to raise awareness about the Fight for $15 movement. These gatherings were held in over 340 cities across the United States and gathered to voice that even the election of Donald Trump, would not halt the movement’s progress. This also comes even with recently designated Labor Secretary, fast food CEO, and Fight For 15 critic, Andy Puzder, who has been critical of a higher minimum wage of even nine dollars. Many argue that this appointment is a big slap to the face of the labor movement considering how last year the CEO made more money in one day ($17,192), than one of his full-time fast food employees at Carl’s Jr and Hardee’s makes in a year ($15,130) (Miller, 2016). This also isn’t the only example of where an executive in a position of power is making more money than their majority workforce, yet claims there isn’t enough money to give them a small raise. This can in some ways also be seen through the wide discrepancy between the medians of the top 20 percent of household incomes and the bottom 20, where the tops median income in NYC is over $420,000 a year, but the bottom 20 percent almost makes $10,000 a year, as seen in study done by the U.S. Census (Roberts, 2014). Yet the argument that some on the right have in regard to how raising minimum wage is a negative, can be set aside as a worthy reason with the success of Seattle’s current minimum wage, which is currently at about $11 an hour and set to reach $15 by 2017 for businesses with over 500 employees. But the important part of this development is not that people have made a few extra dollars, but rather that the effects of pay raises have not resulted in a loss of jobs as some may suggest.
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Many policies and efforts still need to be established for more American’s to live more economically stable lives, the Fight for $15 has started to pave the way for how we as American’s can utilize our voice to continue to strive for a minimalizing the gap between the working and middle class from the upper class. As the Fight for $15 movement highlights, many people today work full time jobs yet still do not have the luxury of being able to take a vacation or even enjoy time off because they have to work multiple jobs to make ends meat. This fight is one that many American’s, including members of the Republican and Democratic parties, have agreed is an important issue that needs to be addressed given the poverty levels in our country. Hopefully with continuous efforts we can strive to work towards higher pay for all working American to earn their fair share and no longer worry about living check to check. Although it is fair to consider that some employers don't want to hand over a raise to all workers, it should be taken into consideration that even low wage workers now are more educated and more productive in comparison to workers back in 1968, when minimum wage was at its peak value (Cooper, 2015).
Sources
"About Us." Fight for $15. Fight for $15, n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
Boushey, Heather. "Understanding How Raising the Federal Minimum Wage Affects Income Inequality and Economic Growth - Equitable Growth." The Washington Center for Equitable Growth. The Washington Center for Equitable Growth, 12 Mar. 2014. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
Cooper, David. "Raising the Minimum Wage to $12 by 2020 Would Lift Wages for 35 Million American Workers." Economic Policy Institute. Economic Policy Institute, 14 July 2015. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
"Hunger in America: 2016 United States Hunger and Poverty Facts." Hunger Notes. World Hunger Education Service, 9 Oct. 2016. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
"Income Inequality." Inequality.org. Institute for Policy Studies, 16 Oct. 2014. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
"It's Time to Raise the Minimum Wage." Economic Policy Institute. Economic Policy Institute, 23 Apr. 2015. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
Jokhakar, Hetali. "City Views: Now for the Bad News on Income and Poverty in NYC." City Limits. City Limits, 27 Oct. 2016. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
Lester, Michael. "Where Were You When The Minimum Wage Was Raised?" Time. Time Inc., 28 Feb. 2014. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
Lester, Wesley. "Senate Republicans Block Minimum Wage Increase Bill." The Washington Post. The Washington Post, 30 Apr. 2014. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
Mathias, Christopher, and Jan Diehm. "NYC Is Even More Unaffordable Than You Think, In 6 Charts." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com Inc, 25 Apr. 2014. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
Miller, Justin. "Trump Taps Anti-Worker Fast-Food CEO for Labor Secretary." The American Prospect. The American Prospect, 8 Dec. 2016. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
Pac, Oliwia. "Yes, the US Economy Is Rigged. That's Why We're Striking." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 29 Nov. 2016. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
Roberts, Sam. "Gap Between Manhattan’s Rich and Poor Is Greatest in U.S., Census Finds." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 17 Sept. 2014. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
"Watch The Rich Take Over New York City In 2 Charts." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com Inc, 23 Jan. 2014. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
Wihbey, John. "Minimum Wage: Updated Research Roundup on the Effects of Increasing Pay." Journalist's Resource. Harvard Kennedy School, 27 July 2016. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
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