Human nature is supported by the three pillars of fundamental rights – life, liberty, and property. In an increasingly modernized and capitalist world, the key to reserving those rights revolves around the idea of capital. As a result, the increase of the minimum wages is essential for conserving the rights of the people. By failing to provide a sufficient wage, people become incapable of obtaining those three essential rights. By losing those rights, people lose their personal liberty, and thus lose a proper government which is said to work towards both the individual and the nation’s best interests at all times. Therefore, it would be unconstitutional and irresponsible to not propose an increase of the minimum wage.
With life, liberty, and especially property in mind, I will leave my reader to consider how minimum wage affects people in the current age.
For starters, America has increased its minimum wage over twenty times during the over the last 80 years in order to keep up with the increasing costs of property. In 1938, it was set at 25 cents which is the equivalent of $4.11 dollars which is arguably enough to provide for the essentials for human survival including food and shelter. However, in the current year of 2017, statistics have shown the federal minimum wage is not indexed with inflation which means that low-wage workers do not have “a wage that keeps pace with the rising costs of goods and services.” Even in 1968, the minimum wage purchasing power was 53% higher than today’s when accounting for inflation.
As a result, “an individual working a typical 40-hour work week at minimum wage would not be able to afford a one bedroom apartment for their family.” It is estimated that one must work 92 hours a week in order to afford a one bedroom apartment in California at minimum wage.
That is spending more than half of the available hours in a total week working just to have enough to afford a shelter. Let us not forget the necessity for food, how that cost increases with the addition of family, and many other things that are essential to keep working such as transportation. I ask the reader, then, does that fulfill the criteria for life? If enslaving more than half of your waking hours to a menial job that affords a roof over one’s head, does that fall under liberty? What choice does one have when it is either work or starve on the streets?
Most importantly, it comes to the question of property. If labor is considered property, and so many hours every week is required for a roof, then one must ask the question of whether that labor is valued fairly. It is the federal government’s responsibility to ensure the promises of life, liberty, and property to its citizens, yet those promises are compromised when the value of labor lies dissonant with human nature. By allowing the value of one’s labor decrease, then one’s very own property is being forfeited.
When the people cannot even own their time and their labor, then they do not truly own their lives. If they do not own and control their lives, then it is their natural rights that is threatened. By failing to increase minimum wage in order to allow the people a standard of living, we are failing the constitution and ultimately, even our very own nature.