Raising the Wage, Waging the Raise

By Kassidy Thomas

News Feature Editor

January 2022

Minimum wage is known to be a recent controversial topic all throughout the country. According to History.com, in 1938 Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act which represented a major shift in labor policy. This was the first time the federal government set a minimum wage. Since this time it has been raised more than twenty-two times.

It is known that Wisconsin’s current minimum wage is $7.25 yet it started as $1.25 in 1968. Within the past 54 years the minimum wage has only gone up by six dollars yet the price has increased by 839.01% says in2013dollars.com. This is a drastic change seeing as the average dollar value has increased by $8.39.

The average dollar has an inflation rate of about 3.68% a year which means that the increase of minimum wage would also mean an increase of products that are a necessity. So would raising the minimum wage actually make living cheaper?

Though raising the minimum wage would create an increase in price of products, people are struggling to pay for rent while only making $7.25 an hour. It is hard for parents to afford that when the average cost for a studio apartment is $651 a month in Rock county.

This has been a constant political debate between both the left and right sides of the political spectrum for the past few decades. The left argues that minimum wage needs to be raised.

“$15 in 2025 would be an ‘appropriate’ level since it would put a dent in ‘poverty wages,’” says businessinsider.com who interviewed Ben Zipperer an economist working for the Economic Policy Institution(EPI).

The right then argue that we need to keep the current minimum wage because of inflation rates.

“They point to studies that assert mandated wage increases would lead to job losses, small-business closures and higher prices for consumers,” according to the New York Times.

As this discussion continues and businesses are already raises their wages to appeal to employees in need of this money, it is an opinion and will never be agreed upon by all.