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When President Obama took office, he stood behind the low wage earning citizens of the country and ensured them he would provide increased minimum wage contracts even if he had to sign a Presidential Executive Order into law. During the 2014 State of the Union address, President Obama announced he would utilize his presidential authority to raise the Federal service contract minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. There are many whom are in disagreement to whether this is a positive or negative economic impact.

Supporters of the minimum wage increase argue that low-income families can reduce dependency on government supplied income support which will reduce poverty and increase family morale. According to the White House Blog (2014), minimum wage accounts for 36 percent of the average wage and is decreasing in value. They fear that families who are at the lower income distribution can potentially be left behind while the economic recovery continues. The falling percentage of average wage contributed from minimum wage causes alarm that the usefulness and original purpose of minimum wage has been diminished. This assumption is created from reviewing current and past minimum wage data and typically household income values.

Raising minimum wage would benefit families making less than $35,000 annually where both members of the household work for minimum wage and families where one member works part-time earning minimum wage while other holds a more steady career type job. To assume the majority of minimum wage earners are college student and those fresh out of high school would be misrepresenting the countries average work force as many of these earners are families with children, couples, and teenagers. It is important to point out that government initiated programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit have played a role in the sustained poverty levels preventing these levels from growing over the last 50 years. The numbers may be misconstrued to show Americans are...