Economic Struggle

  The fact is our economy is still struggling. Middle to lower class families live paycheck to paycheck trying to pay for food, shelter, and the clothes on their back. What are we doing to aid America economically? Well Janet Yellen has a voice that has been heard and had been looked at for suggestions on how to help our economy grow.

  “In some ways, the job market is tougher now than in any recession” says the Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. She is very right. Her signs of a weak economy include things such as long term unemployment and wages rising to slowly. In the US the minimum wage has steadied at 7.25 since 2009. If we were to increase minimum wage we would also be increasing the productivity of the worker. It’s that simple, pay the employee fairly and more will get done, sort of like giving them a push to go forward. If this happens I believe a momentum will take into place and people will follow the path of working more for their hard earned cash. Minimum wage is just as bad as our employers who hesitate to create new jobs. While although the layoffs in America are decreasing, new jobs are not on the rise. Without job opportunities, people can’t have jobs and that the opposite of what we need! The Department of Labor should be encouraging new job opportunities across the country.

  Consequently, if more jobs are available to the public, then workers who quit their jobs voluntarily can be assured that they will be able to get another job. Yellen states that “this is one sign of a healthy job market.” The government must create these new jobs to give people the hope they need that just in case something doesn’t go as planned, they can depend on another type of job to help them pay bills. Part time jobs might even have something to do with this very high unemployment rate. Survey shows that nearly the 7 million people that that work part time would prefer to work full time. Im sure the fresh out of high school employees and Jack in The Box aren’t too satisfied with their jobs. While they should be lucky to even have a job in this economical struggle, I’m sure they would prefer something with better pay.

  Yellen says that “the low rate of wage growth is, to {her}, another sign that fed’s job is not yet done” meaning that our Federal Bank has lots of work to do before we can even begin to peep through the light of this dark recession. Together as a nation and as people who all want the same goal we can fix this daily problem and flourish into the proud country that we say we are!

 http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/31/news/economy/janet-yellen-raise/index.html?iid=SF_BN_Lead

Connecticut To Raise Minimum Wage! by Rachel Almquist

No, Connecticut Businesses Aren't Freaking Out About The New $10.10 Minimum Wage:

By Hunter Stuart:
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/01/connecticut-minimum-wage_n_5045130.html?utm_hp_ref=money&ir=Money

If you've heard the news lately, a law was passed last Thursday raising the state's minimum wage from $8.70 to $10.10 an hour, making it the highest of any state in the nation. The news is significant because $10.10 is also the same rate that President Barack Obama wants for the federal minimum wage, which means many on Capitol Hill will be watching to see how Connecticut's economy performs under the new law, as Obama seeks to convince a polarized Congress to approve the wage hike during a midterm election year. I'm kind of interested to see what happens with the new minimum wage being raised. If it performs poorly, how will that affect the rest of the nation? What will the minimum wage be lowered to afterwards? And, I think most of all, how will it affect Obam's decision to apply the same minimum wage hike to the rest of the nation? "Odds are, the president will have a tough time doing so. Many Republicans have been outspoken in their opposition to such an increase, saying it would make it harder for businesses to afford the cost of employment. Lawrence Cafero, Jr., Connecticut's House minority leader, recently called the wage hike a "punch in the gut" to small businesses, according to the Associated Press." But most small businesses in Connecticut that were interviewed by the Huffington Post on this event said that they weren't particularly worried or concerned with the issue. "We only have about a half dozen employees, and I don't think any of them make under $10.10," the owner, Ron Serafino, told HuffPost on the phone. "So I don't think it will impact me that much." Research suggests that raising the minimum wage would, in fact, increase aggregate household spending. What's more, a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office found that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would boost the earnings of over 16 million people and lift about 900,000 people out of poverty. While the report also found that the wage hike would lead to a loss of about half a million jobs, other studies have challenged the idea that raising the minimum wage would have such an effect.