By Helen Trang
The minimum wage should be raised and the prices of the items shouldn’t change.
In California, the minimum wage is $9 per hour as of July 2014 and the living wage is about $11.37 for one adult. This only includes food, medical, housing, transportation, monthly income, annual income and annual taxes. It doesn’t take in account how much people have to pay for their student loans.
Most apartments in the Los Angeles area costs $1769 a month. A part-time worker makes roughly $1080 per month, if working 6 hours a day 5 times a week.
A 20 oz. bottle of Coca-Cola costs $1.50, which means every hour worked at minimum wage can be used to purchase four 20 oz. of Coca-Cola.
The government is debating on raising the minimum wage to $10 per hour. Even then, it may not be enough. Because even if the government decides to raise the minimum wage, it would also mean that the government will most likely raise the prices of small things like Coca-Cola up as well.
“Having a minimum wage job won’t help pay for necessities such as tuition, rent and food. Unless a person has some type of government support such as food stamps, financial aid, or if that person has multiple jobs,” Jasmine Quan, a student at ELAC said.
Financial aid can be extremely difficult to obtain.
“Minimum wage could barely (allow you to) afford housing let alone the cost of school materials,” student Cinnara Pan said. “It can’t pay for your school supplies, unless you were living with your parents,” Pan added.
Students could spend the time that they use working to study for upcoming tests or even catch up on sleep instead of working a late night job.
Having students focus mainly on school work rather than work and school could drastically improve their grades.
Society wants people to be independent. It frowns upon those who don’t get a college education, but doesn’t present students with enough opportunities to further their education.
Most students continue to live with their parents due to the fact that they don’t have the money or time to go to school.
When students have the time to go to class, they don’t have the money to pay for the classes needed.
Because of the lack of assistance the government provides to students, they are forced to go out and find more then one job. They overwork themselves to support their families , instead of getting a higher education that would allow them to pursue a career.