http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/07/news/companies/fast-food-worker-strikes-150-cities/index.html?iid=s_mpm
On May 7, 2014, the article "Fast food worker strikes planned in 150 cities" was written by Patrick M. Sheridan.
More and more fast-food workers are planning to strike on May 15, 2014 all across America and this movement is starting to spread over seas to other countries as well. These strikes are due to workers wanting higher wages and for their rights to be respected. The strike started on Wednesday in NYC at a McDonald's where workers tried to deliver a letter asking for these demands. When security would not take the letter, the strikers posted it on McDonald's front door where it was removed soon afterwards.
This movement has been going on for 2 years and has spread to more than 100 cities, such as Chicago, Boston, Memphis, etc. Currently, some of these strikes are working and made workers are getting exactly what they have demanded. Workers from all over are demanding to be payed a minimum wage of $15 an hour and be allowed to form unions without retaliation. Currently, the minimum wage for the country is $9 an hour. This is about $18,500 a year. This is less than Census Bureau's poverty income level of a family of four.
Raising minimum wage and keeping it the safe can both good and bad for the economy in my perspective. By paying more, owners are less likely to have as many employees as they won't be able to afford all of them. This will result in more people losing their jobs and not being able to afford their necessities. This lowers the standard of living and increases the overall poverty rate. On the other hand, people are already suffering from the previously stated reasons due to not being payed enough, even though they are working long hours. Overall, I believe that it is better for more to succeed and be paid more, than allow the whole economy to suffer in the long run. I believe that this article truly shows what the economy is going through right now and it shows how big of a problem our low minimum wage is now.
It is true that the strikes have both good and bad ramifications for the economy. Sometimes, employees may not realize that the reason they are not being paid more is because there simply isn't more money in the BUDGET to pay them. It's a very difficult trade-off.
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