For my Capstone project, I’ll be using a remixed video and animated infographic to present the case for the raising of the United States Federal minimum wage. The topic is too complex to boil down into one infographic so I felt that an animated one could prove to be more encompassing on skimming across several ideas to put them all together, and a remixed video that included the hard work people do in what’s considered “no skilled” minimum wage jobs would be prove to be the most effective form of getting the point across that minimum wage needs to be a living wage.
I chose this topic since it effects all of us, even the people who don’t make the bare minimum of what the federal law tells states and employers what they’re required to pay people for their time. There’s a lot of misconceptions surrounding minimum wage, including the idea that workers always have the ability to “climb the ladder” or how all minimum wage jobs are meant for teenagers.
If all of minimum wage jobs were meant to be for teenagers in high school, then staple fast food chains wouldn’t have 24-hour drive through. In fact, you wouldn’t have any workers at cashiers, movie theaters, or a host/hostess at restaurants during school period time frames or into the night.
The minimum wage was instituted by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1938 and was done with the intention of producing a decent, living wage for workers as, and I quote, “It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By “business” I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.”
Businesses that cannot survive without paying their workers what their work is worth have no right to profit off of their sacrifices. Without workers, a business makes no profit. #FightFor15
— Ginger (@c_gingerr) June 7, 2018
Small businesses will benefit from low and middle class workers having more disposable cash to put back into the economy. The U.S. suffers if the majority of workers are hand to mouth. #FightFor15 #MinimumWage
— Ginger (@c_gingerr) June 7, 2018
US Labor Department hasn't raised minimum wage since 2009 – 9 years! That means hasn't been updated since Obama was first inaugurated, Michael Jackson died, and a movie ticket was less than $8 #FightFor15 #LivingWage
— Ginger (@c_gingerr) June 7, 2018
Raising #MinimumWage would help all jobs that are above minimum wage (nurses, admin assistants, construction workers) but not at a living wage. In some states, this helps teachers and EMTs too. #FightFor15 #teacherappreciation
— Ginger (@c_gingerr) June 7, 2018
Most big businesses aren't struggling, according to their own stock prices. The value of workers' labor should go to the laborer first and to the stock holder second. #FightFor15 #Fortune500
— Ginger (@c_gingerr) June 7, 2018