Comparison of Gender Wage Gap in Japan and Germany

Comparison of Gender Wage Gap in Japan and Germany In all of the advanced capitalist nations women were experiencing the contradictions of an education which seemed to promise self-fulfilment, and a labour market based on inequalities of class and gender (Brinton, 1993, as cited in Threlfall, 1996, p. 270). This statement has been made more than fifteen years ago and indicated that women were not treated equally regarding work and pay. However, have circumstances changed since then? If yes, did they improve or worsen and to which extend? The aim of this paper is to analyse the existence of a gender wage gap in Japan and Germany and to evaluate possible reasons for it. Furthermore, an outlook for the future will be given at the end. 2. Gender Wage Gap in Japan The Japanese law system is regulated by the Japanese Standards Labour Law which was enacted after World War II in 1947. This Japanese Standards Labour Law contained a clause which should protect working women. In reality, this clause prevented women from working excessive overtime and during nights (Sama and Papamarcos, 2000). This is why women could not climb up the greasy pole. Furthermore, this law prohibited that women were treated differently on the basis of sex (Threlfall, 1996). On top of this, as stated by Threlfall (1996), the Standards Labour Law covered only equal wages but not promotion or retirement. During this time, employers could be sued for discrimination, but this was an expensive and time-consuming act as each case had to be dealt with separately. Additionally, many companies circumvented the danger of lawsuits by new grading of job titles (Threlfall, 1996). This changed in 1986 when the Equal Employment Opportunity Law (EEOL) was passed (Sama and Papamarcos, 2000 ). This law encouraged companies in Japan to treat employees equally in all aspects like wages, promotion, recruitment and hiring (Threlfall, 1996). Unfortunately, the EEOL contained no penalties for continuing discrimination and also its amendment, which was enacted in 1999, did not really improve the inequalities regarding wage and promotion between men and women (Sama and Papamarcos, 2000). Figure 1 clarifies these important labour laws in Japan. Japanese Labour Standards Law of 1947 Contained protective clause for working women. Came under scrutiny in 1970s as a possible deterrent to womens career advancement. Equal Employment Opportunity Law (EEOL) of 1986 Enacted in 1987, the EEOL called for equal pay for equal work. No penalties for violators. Employers asked only to make a good effort. June 1997 Amendment to the EEOL Enacted in 1999, the amendment lifted restrictions on midnight, holiday, and overtime work by women in effect since the 1947 Labor Standards Law. Further stiffened warnings against companies found in violation of the EEOL. No penalties attached. According to Selmer (2001), the Japanese wage system is based on seniority (pp. 236-237). This indicates that promotion and pay rise are automatic and no subject to job duties or merit (Selmer, 2001). That means that employees get promotion and pay rise when they reach certain age levels. The gender wage gap is measured as the median wage of men minus the median wage of women, expressed as a proportion of the median wage of men (Evans, 2002, p. 191). As stated by the World Economic Forum (2005), no country has yet managed to eliminate the gender gap (p. 1). According to OECD (2007), the womens medium wage in Japan is two thirds of that received by men. This represents twice the OECD average. Figure 2 displays the gender wage gap of several countries. Blau and Kahn (2003) stated that the gender wage gap in Japan is up to 85% (as cited in Johnes and Tanaka, 2006). This means that women earn up to 85% less than men. Recent sources indicated a gender wage gap of 65.9% for 2007 (Japanese Institute for Labour Policy and Training, 2008). The differences in the gender wage gap are subject to different data used for analysis. Some calculations include part-time workers, which are mainly female and others base their calculations on full-time employees only. As already stated above, Japanese firms discriminate on the grounds of gender when paying employees. This chapter evaluates several reasons for the gender wage gap in Japan. First of all, many workers in Japan get a lifetime employment contract (Ishii, 2000). Japanese firms make huge investments in employee training and that is why they want their employees to stay as long with the company as possible. Therefore, the duration of attachment to a firm plays an important role when negotiating wages. As it is most often foreseeable that women will not stay with one company for their whole life, because they want to start a family one day, they pretty much never get a lifetime contract (Ishii, 2000). Therefore, as stated by Ihsii (2000), companies make no investment in human capital when they employ women as they think they will not benefit in the future from this investment as women sooner or later leave the company. The second reason for the gender wage gap is based on different experiences. Miyoshi (2007) argued that there is no gender pay gap when people are employed directly after school, college or university. But when employees accumulate work experience, the wage gap enlarges. Miyoshi (2007) explains this fact by referring to the full-time work experience and seniority. The more full-time work experience an employee has, the more valuable he is. As women often have less work experience because of child-raising obligations and only part-time jobs, the get less money and less promotion than their male counterpart. Different characteristics of workers represent the third reason for the gender wage gap in Japan. Johnes and Tanaka (2006) explained that different characteristics like age, work experience, education and duration of work are one reason for the gender pay gap in Japan. They agree with Miyoshi when stating that differences in work experience are the reason for pay inequalities, but they extend the argument by adding other characteristics like age and education. The greater part of the gender wage gap in Japan can be explained by referring to the reasons stated above. However, there is also a smaller part of the earnings gap that can not be explained. According to Kawaguchi (2006), this part can be attributed to sex discrimination. 4. Gender Wage Gap in Germany Regarding German law, article 3 paragraph 2 of the German Constitution of 1949 states that men and women have equal rights (Maier, 2007). Furthermore, paragraph 3 states that no one should be discriminated on the grounds of gender. This right for equal treatment and payment was not practiced in reality as special wage groups for women were allowed in collective agreements until 1955 (Maier, 2007). Furthermore, Maier (2007) stated that most employees in Germany are paid according to these collective agreements, although the coverage is declining (p. 11). In 1980, a new paragraph was added to the German Constitution which demanded equal pay for work of equal value (Winter, 1998). But this amendment brought no chance. Later, in 2006, the General Equal Treatment Act was passed and paragraph 7 prohibited unequal treatment within any employment relationship (Maier, 2007, p. 18). This law stated that lower wages for women are not justified if they are based on gender. Unfortunately, German law still lacks legal measures to control the implementation of equal wage principles. Furthermore, Maier (2007) stated that it is not easy for women to claim their right for equal pay. Class actions are not allowed and thus, all women must bring their individual claim to court. As this is often an expensive and time-consuming process, many plaintiffs refrain from filing a suit (Maier, 2007). That is why Germany has a significant high gender wage gap, although the German government has a female chancellor (Plass, 2008). In reality, as stated by Plass (2008), Germany has one of the highest gender pay gaps on the European continent. Furthermore, more than 90 percent of all working women are discriminated and earn between 80 and 210 cents less per hour (Gradà ­n, del Rà ­o and Cantà ³, 2006). Legal norms for equal pay in Germany are displayed in figure 3. According to the German government statistics bureau, Destatis, working women in Germany earned 24 percent less than men in 2006 (as cited in Plass, 2008). As stated by Maier (2007), this number has been reduced to 22 percent in 2007. Whereas the average difference in pay is 15 percent in the European Union (Spiegel Online International, 2008). 5. Reasons for the Gender Wage Gap in Germany Several reasons contribute to the large gender wage gap in Germany. First of all, as mentioned by Lauer (n.d.), women often do not possess the same education and skills as men do. Employers who place value on these exact skills are likely to pay women less in order to compensate the lack of skills and knowledge. Furthermore, Lauer (n.d.) also mentioned that skills and knowledge may be rewarded differently between men and women. Meaning that women with the same educational background and knowledge will earn less because these identical skills are not rewarded the same way by the employer. In addition, Maier (2007) identified the lack of legal barriers against low wages as a reason for the gender pay differences in Germany. As there exists no general minimum wage in Germany, and as the country has almost three million unemployed persons (Bundesagentur fà ¼r Arbeit, 2008), it is easy for employers to fill a low-paid vacancy. Furthermore, Lauer (n.d.) identified occupational crowding of women in low paid occupations as another source for earning inequalities between men and women in Germany. There is also the fact that there is a low proportion of working women in highly paid positions (Maier, 2007). Concluding, Maier (2007) stated that factors like age, education and work experience present only a very unimportant reason for wage discrimination. Again, the unexplained part of the gender wage gap can be attributed to discrimination based on gender (Lauer, n.d.). 6. Similarities and Differences between Japan and Germany After analyzing the gender wage gap in Japan and Germany and its reasons, several similarities as well as differences can be pointed out. First of all, there is a significant high gender wage gap in both countries, although the difference in earnings is higher in Japan with around 35 percent compared to Germany with about 22 percent (Maier, 2007). Nevertheless, the German earnings gap is 7 percent higher than the European Union average (Spiegel Online International, 2008). Both countries put emphasis on the characteristics of employees. Age, work experience and education are important when negotiating wages. As women often have less education or work experience than men (Lauer, n.d.), they get paid less than their male counterpart. Furthermore, part of the gender wage gap in both countries is an unexplained part which can be attributed to gender discrimination (Kawaguchi, 2006; Lauer, n.d.). Differences between the two countries can be found in the fact that Japanese employers discriminate when investing in human capital. Due to the Japanese lifetime employment, many employers consider rather carefully whether to employ women or not. As it is obvious to them that women will leave the company some day for child-raising duties, they will thereby take away the human capital in which the company invested. 7. Conclusion Even if both countries enacted laws in the 80ies which should ensure equal pay for work of equal value, there is still a significant gender wage gap observable. Japan as well as Germany managed during the last to decades to narrow this gap, but this happened probably just because of the new laws which were enforced. When looking ahead, both countries will probably have a different future. Japan will stick to its lifetime employment system (Kato, 2001) and thereby will keep the earnings gap between men and women stable. The fact that more and more Japanese women decide to pursue their careers can possibly help in narrowing the gender pay gap (Fackler, 2007). Germany is likely to increase the gender pay gap as the coverage of collective agreements, which set equal wages for men and women, is declining (Maier, 2007). Furthermore, as long as there is no support from the government to implement the right for equal money for work of equal value, the gender wage gap will not be narrowed. 8. Bibliography , Blau, F. and Kahn, L. (2003). Understanding international differences in the gender pay gap. Journal of Labor Economics. Vol. 21, pp. 106-144. Brinton, M. (1993). Women and the economic miracle: gender and work in post-war Japan. Berkeley: Calif. Bundesagentur fà ¼r Arbeit (2008). Der Arbeits- und Ausbildungsmarkt in Deutschland (The work and education market in Germany) [online]. Available at: URL: http://www.pub. arbeitsamt.de/hst/services/statistik/000000/html/start/monat/ aktuell.pdf [Accessed 6 January 2009]. Evans, J. (2002). work/family reconciliation, gender wage equity and occupational segregation: the role of rims and public policy [online]. Available at: URL: http://economics.ca/cgi/jab?journal= cppview=v28s1/CPPv28s1p187.pdf [Accessed 16 December 2008]. Fackler, M. (2007). Career women in Japan find a blocked path. The New York Times, [online]. Available at: URL: http://www. nytimes.com/2007/08/06/world/asia/06equal.html [Accessed 6 January 2009]. Gradà ­n, C., del Rà ­o, C. and Cantà ³, O. (2006). Poverty and womens labor market activity: the role of gender wage discrimination in the EU [online]. Available at: URL: http://www.ecineq.org/milano/ WP/ECINEQ2006-40.pdf [Accessed 6 January 2009]. Ishii, H. (2000). Occupational segregation and the gender wage gap in Japan [online]. Available at: URL: http://www.kli.re.kr/ iira2004/pro/papers/HisakoISHII.pdf [Accessed 05 January 2009]. Japanese Institute for Labour Policy and Training (2008). Wages and labour costs [online]. Available at: URL: http://www.jil.go. jp/english/estatis/databook/2008/05.htm [Accessed 05 January 2009]. Johnes, G. and Tanaka, Y. (2006). Changes in gender wage discrimination in the 1990s: a tale of three different economies. Japan and the World Economy. Vol. 20, pp. 97-113. Kato, T. (2001). The end of lifetime employment in Japan?: evidence from national surveys and field research. Journal of the Japanese and International Economies. Vol. 15, pp. 489-514. Kawaguchi, D. (2006). A market test for sex discrimination: evidence from Japanese firm-level panel data. International Journal of Industrial Organization. Vol. 25, pp. 441-460. Lauer, C. (n.d.). Gender wage gap in West Germany: how far do gender differences in human capital matter? [online]. Available at: URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=217651 [Accessed 6 January 2009]. Maier, F. (2007). The persistence of the gender wage gap in Germany [online]. Available at: URL: http://www.harriet-taylor-mill.de/pdfs/discuss/Discussion%20Paper%2001%202007.pdf [Accessed 29 December 2008]. Miyoshi, K. (2007). Male-female wage differentials in Japan. Japan and the World Economy. Vol. 20, pp. 479-496. OECD (2007). Highlights Japan [online]. Available at: URL: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/20/20/39696303.pdf [Accessed 29 December 2008]. Plass, S. (2008). German women struggle with gender wage gap. International Herald Tribune, [online]. Available at: URL: http:// www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/28/business/women.php?page=1 [Accessed 31 December 2008]. Sama, L. and Papamarcos, S. (2000). Cultures consequences for working women in corporate America and Japan, Ind.. Cross Cultural Management An International Journal. Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 18-29. Selmer, J. (2001). Human resource management in Japan. International Journal of Manpower. Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 235-243. Spiegel Online International (2008). German women earn a fifth less than men. Spiegel Online International, [online]. Available at: URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518, 558526,00.html [Accessed 31 December 2008]. Threlfall, M. (1996). Mapping the womens movement. London: Verso. Winter, R. (1998). Gleiches Entgelt fà ¼r gleichwertige Arbeit: Ein Prinzip ohne Praxis (Equal pay for work of equal value: a principle without practice.). Baden-Baden. World Economic Forum (2005). Womens empowerment: measuring the global gender gap [online]. Available at: URL: http://www.weforum.org/pdf/Global_Competitiveness_Reports/Reports/gender_gap.pdf [Accessed 30 December 2008].

Terms Comparison Paper Hcs 552

Terms Comparison Paper HCS/552 February 4, 2013 John J. Schibler Terms Comparison Paper Health care economics involves making plenty of choices. Individuals, groups, businesses, and organizations choose how to use resources . Economics and health care are linked, because health care professionals apply economics in their everyday professional activities. They are able to do this through resource allocation. Any health care organization has to plan out how they will use their resources to their advantage. Health care economics are able to incorporate terms like cost, quality, and resources.In this paper, I will compare these terms as they relate to health care economics. In this paper, I will also explain how they differ from one another. Resources are considered to be any physical thing or virtual element that has limited availability. A resource can also be anything that is used to help people earn a living. There are different types of resources such as human resources, and natural resources. In economics, human resources refer t human capital or employees in an organization (Getzen, 2007).Many times resources are considered to be a means of factors of production. When health care organization is in production of something, natural resources are being used. Resources are usually limited, and most organizations have to look for ways of allocating resources that they need. Resources in health care means that all materials and funds are used to provide health care for people. The term â€Å"resource† has similar meaning in health care and economics. When used in health care, it means that all materials and funds are used to provide health care.When referring to the economic portion of health care, resource means that they are the personnel, the funds, facilities, or any material used in production. Another similarity is that resources are limited and they have value. For example, funds, as well as personnel are limited, and they may hinder delivery of hea lth care services and productivity. Most people prefer to have quality health care. Quality may also have many different meanings. Quality in health care economics means the superiority of something. This can also mean the best of something.Quality in health care can be determined by determining if the health care is a great fit for the person. Quality of health care can be considered as the right treatment for the right illness, and also delivering health care at the right time. Quality in health care economics means to give the best health care possible. Getzen (2007), states that medicine often involves life and death situations (p. 12). In these situations, quality is crucial and quantity is irrelevant (Getzen, 2007). Quality cannot simply be added up or multiplied to arrive at a total spending limit.In medical care, getting more ounces or pounds or boxes or whatever is usually not very important, but getting higher quality is. When referring to health care economics, â€Å"cos t† refers to the funds that are used to deliver health care to patients. Cost can also mean the amount of funds used to access health care or to deliver health care (Getzen, 2007). It is applied in many different ways such as, health care professionals applying economic principles like cost benefit analysis, or cost effect analysis to determine if the choice is good or bad.The principles help the government to provide the best intervention in health care (Getzen, 2007). In conclusion, all the terms are interlinked when discussing health care economics. This is so and will always be so, because health care professionals always apply economic principles in health care. All of these terms help when deciding how to make and provide the correct interventions when making difficult decisions. When referring to resources, it has the same meaning when dealing with health care as well as economics alone.It means, materials, funds, employees and the facilities used in achieving goals set by the health care organization. While the term cost means something differently when separating health care and economics it all ties in when they are applied together in an organization. Cost means the funds used to deliver health care or when a patient is trying to access health care. Costs can also be rejected when making decisions about health care. Quality means to give the best possible when delivering care to a patient as well as when making decisions about a health care organization.All of these terms are the same in making health care economical decisions. We depend on all the terms in this paper when trying to make an ethical decision as it relates to health care and health care organizations. The essence of health care economics is simply trade or making a buck (Getzen, 2007). Its focal point will always be the market and the place where buyers and sellers exchange dollars for goods and services (Getzen, 2007). References Getzen, T. E. (2007). Health, economics, and fin ancing (3rd ed. ). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons. http://www. healthcarefinance. org/HEtext_files/chap01. pdf

Bus 475 Week 3 Learning Team: Functional Area Interrelationships

Functional Area Interrelationships October 29, 2012 BUS/475 University of Phoenix Abstract Huffman Trucking is a trucking company that was established in 1936. Throughout this paper, we will discuss the company’s mission and vision statement. It will also identify the type of organizational structure and how each of those roles supports the company’s goals. The collaboration process among the functional areas must also be established to support the goals.Finally, the stakeholders will be reviewed and how the company plans to protect them and how their communication is vital to the success of Huffman Trucking. â€Å"Huffman Trucking started in 1936 in Cleveland, OH. By 1945, the company had increased in size to 16 tractors and 36 trailers. † (Virtual Organization) Today Huffman trucking is one of the largest trucking companies in the United States. The company has four locations across the U. S. ; Cleveland, OH, Los Angeles, CA, St. Louis, MO, and Bayonne, NJ.The company has created a core foundation to continue to grow the company and sustain financial stability. Since the inception of the organization in 1936, Huffman trucking has grown their fleet of tractor-trailers from one to over 800 tractors, 2,100 45 foot trailers, and 260 roll on/ roll off units. Huffman trucking also employees 925 drivers and 425 technical support staff members, which is based from the increase in business that they have seen over the years from their acquisitions of five other freight companies.The mission of Huffman trucking is â€Å"to be a profitable, growing, adaptive company in an intensively competitive logistical services business environment†. Huffman Trucking according to the mission statement wants to be a competitive company within the logistics industry, and they also want to maintain the growth and profitability that they have experienced over the years. The vision statement of Huffman Trucking is â€Å"to be a model company to our stockholde rs, employees, customers, and all stakeholders†.Through the vision statement that Huffman Trucking has put into place at their organization they want to be a company that does right by all the people that are investors in the company, as well as, the employees and customers that are also valued by the organization. In analyzing the mission and vision statements of the company, Huffman Trucking existence is to maintain their market share in the logistics industry by treating the customer, employees, stock, and stakeholders with the upmost respect and consideration.The reason that Huffman Trucking uses the business structure that they have is to maintain the solid structure of the employment, and maintain the growth of the business in the industry of logistics. Huffman Trucking is a company that prides themselves on the idea that taking care of the employees will help the employees will take care of the customers, and the revenues from the customers will help the business and th e stock and stakeholders maintain their edge. Huffman Trucking is a leader in the industry of logistics, and is one of the larger corporations that are in operation.The contracts that Huffman Trucking has are strong stable contracts that will help the vision and mission of the company to be successful in the completion and achievement of the goals that they set for the organization. Huffman Trucking has a strong foundation and the future of the organization is solid with the contracts that are in place from years to come. The services that Huffman Trucking offers to its customers are services that can help the growth of the business, and to maintain the competitive edge that Huffman Trucking has over its competition.Huffman Trucking is a privately held United States based company. Huffman Trucking’s Mission Statement is â€Å"to be a profitable, growing, adaptive company in an intensively competitive logistical services business environment†(Huffman Trucking, 2012). Hu ffman’s Trucking Vision Statement is â€Å"to be a model company to our stockholders, employees, customers and all stakeholders† (Huffman Trucking, 2012). Huffman trucking has implemented the following steps of the collaboration process that must be employed to achieve organizational goals.The action plan to implement the collaboration process is to create an important objective, build, sustain, or enhance a core competence or competitive advantage, important new market opportunities as well as mitigate significant risk to the trucking business. Facilitating the close cross-company by merger and acquisition strategies play a part in Huffman trucking. Expanding the company’s geographic coverage and independently developing whatever resources and know-how were needed to be successful was imperative. Huffman Trucking has facilities in four major cities in the United States, Cleveland, OH, Los Angeles, CA, St.Louis, MO, and Bayonne, NJ. In order for Huffman Trucking to be a successful business there had to be several things put into place. The mission of the company is to be a profitable, growing, adaptive company in an intensively competitive logistical services business environment. The vision of Huffman Trucking is to be a model company to our stockholders, employees, customers and all stakeholders. In order for Huffman Trucking to be able to achieve the mission and reach the vision for the company there had to be the use of collaborations within. Such collaborations would include lateral and vertical collaborations.Lateral collaboration is where a group of people with the same ranking work together to accomplish a task. An example of lateral collaboration would be if two or more of the floor employees work together to try and come up with a way to increase production. A vertical collaboration would occur when a person of higher rank works with a person of lower rank to accomplish a goal. The CEO of the company working with a floor shift ma nager to try to increase production would be an example of vertical collaboration. Looking on the service request page, there has been many requests for service made by different people.One request that was made was made by the CIO for a Windows server upgrade for all the network locations. The expected goal of this server upgrade is to provide a migration path from the current network to one running Windows Server 2008. An action plan will be put together in order to accomplish this goal. Vertical collaboration will be used as the CIO works together with the IT department in order to accomplish the task of upgrading the server. They will work together to make sure that the server upgrade allows Huffman Trucking to do everything that it needs to be successful such as the right domain model and network dministration for all sites. An action plan will then be put into effect for lateral collaboration. This will allow the front line staff to develop ways that the upgraded server can he lp them. Examples of that would be that Administrative control of domain controllers can be decentralized if needed and allows the drivers to have access to at least one computer at each site. Huffman Trucking takes great pride in their company not only for their employees and customers but also for their stakeholders.They have developed a mission statement for their stakeholders; â€Å"We will maintain continuous awareness of our stakeholders and apply the test of reasonableness to assure our business practices are commensurate with stakeholder expectations. † (Virtual Organization) By identify awareness to the stakeholders, they will want to continue to invest in Huffman Trucking. Some of the stakeholders include; President/CEO, VP of Transportation, VP of Equipment, VP of Real Estate, VP of Terminal Operations, VP of Sales, Shareholders and all employees.The collaborative interaction between the Huffman Trucking Executive Management is critical to the success of the busine ss. They are the making the deciding factors for each category that they are over. At the end of the day, each VP relies on another VP in order to proceed with their decisions. The management team must work together in order to ensure that Huffman Trucking and the Stakeholders are happy and successful. At the end of the day, if the stakeholders do no collaborate together all of them will lose out. Huffman Trucking has created a company that continues to grow and build upon their success year after year.By staying true to their mission and vision statement the company will be able to open up more locations in the United States. Huffman trucking has a clear strategic plan that allows them to have a strong internal and vertical collaboration. By keeping their focus and foundation alive to their shareholders, stakeholders, employees, and customers Huffman Trucking will continue to be a leading trucking company. References Virtual Organization Portal. (2012) Huffman Trucking. Retrieved o n October 29, 2012 from http://ecampus. phoenix. edu

The Minimum Wage Of 22 Swiss Francs - 1219 Words

In May of 2014, Switzerland rejected the world’s highest minimum wage of 22 Swiss francs, which in American dollars, is roughly $25 per hour. Even Switzerland, one of the more famous countries remaining on the gold standard, has a problem regarding their minimum wage. As a high school student working off of American minimum wage, Switzerland’s presented amount is considered lofty and idealistic. In America, the minimum wage is $7.25, not nearly enough for an adult, let alone a teenanger living at home with parents. Teenagers are expected a lot from their parents, including maintaining a job, continually passing grades, and are expected to pay their own way through college. With minimum wage set at $7.25, college seems like a far-fetched†¦show more content†¦Some people say that when we raise our minimum wage our economy inflates, and the price change would be pointless. Yet when our economy constantly shifts from depression to economic boom, the average worker needs a money cushion. Living on paycheck to paycheck is not a healthy lifestyle, and is in complete contrast to the American Dream. As a high school student working on minimum wage, most people think that $7.25 is plenty for a teenager, when in actuality it is not. Although opponents can argue that â€Å"most minimum wage workers are not trying to support themselves, but are living in households where their living expenses are largely provided for,† says Beth Shulman, this is not the case. â€Å"Half of fast-food workers during the 2010-12 were 23 or over,† according to John Schmitt from the Center of Economic Policy Research. Most of these workers probably clock-in two minimum jobs, and are struggling to make it paycheck to paycheck, never getting the chance to pay off their debts, to take personal vacations, or to live the American Dream. In 1937, the Supreme Court ordered that the government had the power to establish minimum wage rates. This seems ridiculous, seeing as it is nearly impossible for an impersonal government to understand an individual with already low-paying jobs. Not only is the floor for our minimum wage set, but it is approached from White House, a distance most minimum wage