The city of Cupertino recently announced that starting Jan. 1, 2022, they will be raising the minimum wage to $16.40, a 75 cents increase. This new wage is livable for a high school or college student, however, for someone who is trying to start their life or family, it does not support a healthy way of living.

Minimum wage should be increased drastically because it would allow all families and individuals the ability to live their lives without having to worry about life’s essentials.

Some people will tell you that the minimum wage should not be raised because of inflation, causing stores to raise the prices of their goods and services. However, these people fail to see that in the Bay Area, the housing market does not care about inflation, so it is harder for people to afford places to live when the house prices are rising higher than minimum wage is.

One job that would benefit from an increase in minimum wage would be bar staff as they are paid at poverty level, making anywhere from $20,000 to $27,000 a year, forcing them to work hard for tips to be able to support their families.

According to the city of Cupertino’s economic analysis summary, the increase will be an average of $3,200 annually and affect up to 250,000 workers. 

You would think that’s not too bad, yet with living in Cupertino that only gives you about one months rent and some money for groceries for a week. When you live paycheck to paycheck, this is a lot of money, but the city can do better for those that this is not enough for.

The minimum wage has been increasing each year at a lesser and lesser rate. From 2017 to 2019 it increased at a rate of $1.50 a year and now has increased by less than a dollar a year. 

This does not bode well for a city in which it is already competitive with all the tech companies, so even with the minimum wage going up minimally each year, it will remain difficult for anyone to live here.

Life is already difficult enough with it’s endless twists and turns giving you highs and lows. The least that people deserve is to be paid well enough to afford housing, food, water and all of life’s needs. So keep fighting for it.