Minimum wage is famously too low in the United States, and many people feel the effects of the low wage. Minimum wage for students is far too low making it harder for students to save for college, and other goals they may have.

To start, many high school students are trying to save for big purchases like cars and college. With $10.30 as the minimum wage, if you work 40 hours a week you can earn at most $412. Most students can’t work even 20 hours a week because they have other activities like sports or theatre, or may need to take care of their family leaving them with even less money.

These wages make it almost impossible for people to purchase a safe vehicle or have enough money to go to college. If the minimum wage was increased to $15, then you’d make a significantly more amount of money in the long run which would help in saving up for these purchases that you’d likely need to have a successful life.

Students need to take care of not just themselves, but also their family since their parents may not be around, or don’t have enough money to support the whole family. Just $412 a week isn’t enough to take care of one person in many places, let alone a whole family, so if it was raised to $15 an hour it would be $600. This is much a week which is a significant increase compared to the $412.

Many students can’t work past 8pm since they have sleep they need to get before school starts in the morning. So many employers can’t staff their stores since they can’t find employees. It’s unknown if people just don’t want to work or if it has to do with the minimum wage but I believe the low wages are a big factor. If the low pay was increased it would make it possible for businesses to stay open past 8pm and hit the narrow window of people coming home from work picking up dinner.

Minimum wage is too low making life substantially more difficult for the lower class, and even middle class to make ends meet. To fix this issue we need to increase the minimum wage a significant amount, and lower the cost of many necessities that are too costly for teenagers