Raising the Federal Minimum Wage
Economic Policy Institute's State Policy & Research Director David Cooper and Heritage Foundation's Workplace & Public Finance Senior Research Fellow Rachel Greszler talked about the pros and cons of raising the federal minimum wage.
Description
Economic Policy Institute's State Policy & Research Director David Cooper and Heritage Foundation's Workplace & Public Finance Senior Research Fellow Rachel Greszler talked about the pros and cons of raising the federal minimum wage.
Bell Ringer Assignment
- Summarize the "history" of the federal minimum wage.
- Based on the clip, how many workers currently make the minimum wage?
- What is the federal minimum wage designed to "accomplish?"
- According to David Cooper, why have states and cities enacted minimum wages that are higher than the federal level?
- When did Congress last "increase" the minimum wage? Why?
- Why hasn't the federal minimum wage been raised in recent years, according to Rachel Greszler?
- What is the "appropriate way" to raise the minimum wage? Summarize the example Greszler provides of Mississippi and Washington, D.C.
- A higher minimum wage is "most difficult" for whom? Why?
Additional Resources
- Video Clip: The Minimum Wage and Inflation
- Video Clip: State of Small Businesses in the U.S.
- Video Clip: Raising the Minimum Wage
- Bell Ringer: Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes
- Lesson Plan: Employee Free Choice Act
- Lesson Plan: Walmart’s “Transformation”
- Lesson Plan: Should the Federal Minimum Wage Be Raised?
- Deliberation: Should the federal minimum wage be raised? (C-SPAN Classroom Deliberations)
Participants
Mimi GeergesGuest Host, C-SPAN560 Videos
Vocabulary
- Automation
- Capital
- Congress
- Employer
- House Of Representatives
- Lawmaker
- Low Income
- Mandate
- Median
- Minimum Wage
- Nominal
- Percentile
- Poverty
- Raise The Wage Act Of 2021
- Senate
- Small Business
- Standard Of Living
- Start Up
- Tipped Wage