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__ Script __ __(Three Sugars and Spice)__ Recently, the minimum wage has increased from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour. This increase in the minimum wage was a help to many people that are struggling to get by, but it is still not high enough. A person making $7.25 while working 40 hours each week, would bring in $290 each week, and only $1160 each month. The average cost for housing for a person living by them selves in Frederick Maryland is over $1100 each month. If you add the costs of food, transportation, medical expenses, insurance, loans, and more, the living wage in Frederick Maryland is nearly $2000 each month. If there were more people in the family, the prices could be double that amount. This shows that a person making minimum wage would not have nearly enough money to be able to live comfortably. That is why we think that the minimum wage should be increased by even more, to $12.50. With this hourly wage, a person working 40 hours a week would make around $2000 each month. Although this amount would not be enough to support a full family, it would be enough for someone to live off of.

Some people think that an increased minimum wage would be more hurtful than helpful. Many think that since the people working for minimum wage are mostly teenagers, that an increase would not help the people it targets, which is the working poor. It would actually help many people because most of the teenagers that are working minimum wage jobs are usually either saving up for a car or saving up money for college. Others are often working in order to help the family pay for basic things. They are working for things that their parents would otherwise have to pay for. Since a minimum wage salary is still not enough to support a whole family, many younger people are working in order to help out their struggling parents. This means that a minimum wage increase would truly help a lot of people that are struggling to get by.

Another thought that a lot of economists have is that a minimum wage increase would make prices and the unemployment rate go up. Many businesses make a lot of money each day. If they increased the pay of their employees by a few dollars an hour, it would not impact them greatly. They may increase prices very slightly, but it would not be greatly noticeable. Take McDonalds for example - they make billions of dollars every year, so if the minimum wage was increased, they would not be affected very much. If they pay their workers several dollars an hour more, even if this means millions of dollars less profit each year, they would still be making a great sum of money. Plus, even if prices were to increase, the new minimum wage would pump about 5.5 billion dollars into the US economy over the next year. This increase in money would make up for the slightly higher prices. It would also not cause a increase in unemployment because many businesses do not even pay their workers minimum wage, so it would not affect them, and the businesses that are affected by the minimum wage should be able to either raise their prices a small, not noticeable amount or slightly lower the pay for the people working higher up in the business.  The unemployment and foreclosure crisis have only made things more difficult for low income workers. When the foreclosure crisis began, it simply was that some home owners had taken out some loans that they could not afford, causing the home values to drop and lacking the ability to refinance and sell there homes for profit, and this problem precipitated a recession. Raising the minimum wage to $12.50 would help stop foreclosures and would help people pay for their houses. Raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $12.50 would help millions of people in the United States, and would not have a bad impact on the economy. Although prices might go up, they would be minimal and the unemployment rate would not go up. It would put more money into the receding economy and people would be able to live better and pay for housing and other basic things. A higher minimum wage would be very helpful to many people and would not have a significant negative impact on anyone. That is why we support a minimum wage increase to $12.50 an hour.