The current fight for a higher minimum wage has brought out all of the working class to give their opinion on the matter. For the majority, most people seem to think simply raising the wage will fix the problems that they currently deal with on the day to day basis. I always wanted a higher paying job, but nothing is just handed to most Americans. Change is needed in our country; however, I disagree with raising minimum wage. We ask for higher wages every year, and it has slowly progressed over time, but guess what else increased? That’s right; everything in our daily lives includes increased prices, which I believe stem from higher wages.

You may be thinking, since you don’t have all the answers, what can be done?  We have to start at the top because that’s where our problems start.  Supposedly, there are emails from Tanden to four senior Clinton officials opposing and fearful of the new minimum wage but the emails were obtained illegally. The leaks were posted through wikileaks so there is a chance of it being false as well. Peter Suderman had a great outlook on the matter: “What that means is that Clinton’s top advisers—and, almost certainly, Clinton herself—know full well that there’s essentially no good evidence, even from liberal evidence, to support moving to a $15 federal minimum, and are aware that doing so would likely cost jobs. But Clinton, under pressure from the party’s left flank, has indicated that she would nonetheless support $15-an-hour legislation.” Hillary Clinton appears to only support the wage increase because she does not want to lose Bernie Sanders supporters. She is simply looking out for her own political future and is passing off lies to keep voters. Along with her current stance, the Democratic Party Platform adopted the “Fightfor15” slogan as well.

According to the Washington Post Donald Trump has “flip-flopped” regarding the wage increase. Originally Trump opposed raising the wage but, one of his campaign officials cleared the air and stated, “On the minimum wage, Mr. Trump has voiced support for raising it to $10 at the federal level, but believes states should set the minimum wage as appropriate for their state.” To coincide with what Trump has stated, the Republican Party Platform believes that minimum wage should be handled on a state and local level. I actually agree with both statements because the cost of living in each state varies so, some states don’t need an equal wage as others.

I will offer an opposing view that states it’s a scam to believe that if wages go up jobs will go down. Nick Hanauer states that trickle-down economics does not apply in this case. He provides an example of Domino’s CEO David Brandon stating that inflation would occur and jobs would be lost if wages were to go up.  Neither job loss nor inflation occurred. The wage went from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour, which wasn’t a huge increase. Although he provides a solid point to support his claim, I feel like there needed to be more research done in order to support this claim.  A wage increase from $9.25 to $15 an hour is a lot different.

When thinking about how many Americans we have in our country, we have to understand that the proposed federal minimum wage increase means $5.75 more for every American. Let’s say we scale the issue down to 4 million working class citizens. Four  million multiplied by $5.75 equals $23 million extra that employers would have to paid their employees.  In my opinion, there is absolutely no way corporations would be able to keep up with that demand.

Wages should only go up in the areas that need it and not on a federal level. If people think the increase is enough for them to be financially stable, I would say they are blind. And honestly I would be quite mad if a wage increase were to occur. Most college graduates struggle to receive $15 an hour upon graduating, so what is the real incentive to finish school? If wages went up, I would then hope that salaried bachelor level positions would receive a pay increase as well to combat the regular working class increase. If not, what would we have to show the importance of a degree? There is no short-term answer to the arguments over wage increase because everyone is greedy at the top. It would take corporations lowering the cost of items to make things more affordable, and that has to be across the board for everything.