The federal minimum wage has increasingly been debated and poses a significant divide in our government and society. This paper aims to discuss and analyze three major issues facing this decision from an unbiased perspective. All information is gathered from scholarly, credible articles that provide information to support the claims made in the essay. The Federal minimum wage should not be raised to 15$ per hour because it will increase unemployment, it will fail to help the poor, and will hurt small businesses; thus the solution to this issue should be the EITC or Earned Income Tax Credit.
             One proposed reason for the wage increase is that it is supposed to decrease unemployment. However, it will do the exact opposite. According to research by Mark and Jamie Partridge (1999), an increase in the Federal minimum wage to either $12 or $15 per hour, would not only result in higher unemployment rates but also longer periods of unemployment. The reasoning behind this is that significant portions of minimum wage earners are unskilled workers with no secondary education. These workers provide little value to the companies they work for in comparison to the employees with advanced degrees and skilled training. It would be these unskilled workers that would be let go due to the increase in labor costs. Companies are in the business to make money and be successful. To achieve this, they must employ people that are skilled and educated to make this success a reality. Because of this, these companies would put more focus on the employees who have skills and experience to leverage for the wage increase, thus leaving out the workers with little or no skills. A study conducted by Sabia and Burkhauser (2010) show that "during the years 1984-89 when three dollars increased the minimum wage, the unemployment rate for unskilled workers increase by 10-20% (para. 5)."
             It's important to include in this discussion teenage workers....