Increasing the Minimum Wage Will Reduce Crime

The minimum wage should be increased to $15 per hour by 2019 because this will decrease the crime rate. According to the author of the article,

White House Argues Raising the Minimum Wage Will End Crime Faster Than Mass Incarceration, increasing the minimum wage is better than incarcerating individuals. The following chart below shows that increasing spending on incarceration by $10 billion leads to 1% to 4% reduction in the crime rate whereas, if the minimum wage is raised to at least $12 in 2020 then there will be a 3% to 5% reduction in the overall crime rate. The chart also shows that when the minimum wage is increased then the net societal benefit is $8 billion to $17 billion.  In comparison increasing spending on incarceration only leads to a $1 billion dollar benefit from the reduced crime.

In addition according to Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, the author of

Raise the Minimum Wage, Reduce Crime?,“Higher wages for low-skilled workers reduce both property and violent crime, as well as crime among adolescents" (Williams 1). The reason that the author gives for this is that  increasing the minimum wage provides an incentive for adolescents to work and that allows for less crime rates because adolescents are less likely to commit crime if they have a good paying job. Also Williams states that “the impact of wages on crime is substantial , a 10 percent increase in wages for non-college educated men results in approximately a 10 to 20 percent reduction in crime rate" ( Williams 2). This statistic shows that increasing the minimum wage decreases the crime rate. Another statistic that further supports this claim is that, NBER Faculty Research Fellow Jeffrey Grogger estimates that "a ten percent increase in wages would reduce youth participation in crime by roughly 6 to 9 percent" (Grogger). This indicates that increasing the minimum wage will help reduce the crime rate in the younger population. He also comes to the conclusion that when there is 20 percent drop in wages that  will lead to a 12 to 18 percent increase in youth crime. In addition Jeffrey Grogger states that younger men are effected a lot by price incentives which means according to Grogger, "the more money they can make through legitimate means, the less likely they are to commit crimes" (Grogger 4). This is why the minimum wage should be increased to $15 by 2019.

Works Cited:
Aleem, Zeeshan. White House Argues Raising the Minimum Wage Will End Crime Faster Than Mass Incarceration27 Apr. 2016. Accessed 2 Nov. 2016.

Grogger, Jeffrey. Higher Youth Wages Mean Lower Crime Rates www.nber.org/digest/nov97/w5983.html. Accessed 2 Nov. 2016.

Wiliams, Juleyka L. Raise the Minimum Wage, Reduce Crime?6 May 2016, www.citylab.com/crime/2016/05/raise-the-minimum-wage-reduce-crime/481014/.
 Accessed 2 Nov. 2016.