We SHOULD Raise the Minimum Wage

A raise in the minimum wage can help our families, small businesses, and the economy recover from the worst economic recession in this generation, it will do this because, "By boosting pay in the low-wage jobs on which more families are relying than ever, a stronger minimum wage will help restore the consumer spending that powers our economy and that local businesses need in order to grow." quote from, www.raisetheminimumwage.com.
Also coming from raising the minimum wage, it would increase the amount of income going to those families, thereby providing them the means to buy more things that they previously couldn't afford. According to www.epi.org, "Increasing the federal minimum wage to $9.80 by July 1, 2014, would raise the wages of about 28 million workers, who would receive nearly $40 billion in additional wages over the phase-in period." Also, "Across the phase-in period of the minimum-wage increase, GDP would increase by roughly $25 billion, resulting in the creation of approximately 100,000 net new jobs over that period." GDP meaning Gross Domestic Product.
According to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics over half of the minimum wage workers are over the age of 25. This means that those people have families and probably have a hard time providing for their families because they only make around $14,000 dollars a year, and if you have a family of 3 or smaller, then the government will not give you financial aid. That's coming from www.timeforaraise.org. Another thing quoted from this same site is, "According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average monthly residential electric bill in the United States is $103.67. This comes in just barely under the total budgeted above for utilities. However, this doesn’t include the cost of water, heat, phone service, or internet access (something that, though still considered a luxury, is becoming increasingly important in both Americans’ personal and work lives)." People living off of minimum wage are basically in very bad shape seeing as how they can hardly, if not at all, afford the most taken granted of comforts of life. Seeing all this information, it proves that we should raise the minimum wage.
CITED SOURCES:
http://www.epi.org/publication/ib341-raising-federal-minimum-wage/
http://www.raisetheminimumwage.com/pages/why-we-should-raise-the-minimum-wage
http://www.timeforaraise.org/benefits-of-raising-the-minimum-wage/