Minimum wage slowly killing workers

In Kansas, minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. That means jobs are legally required to only pay you seven dollars and twenty-five cents every hour.

For some people that’s not a big deal. If you’re still at home with little to no bills, you can work part time, get paid, and just have some extra spending cash. But for some of us, it’s almost impossible to make ends meet.

A survey from Citigroup recently found that nearly 80 percent of students work while attending school. We attend school five days a week, anywhere from two to seven hours a day. Most of us get out of school and directly go to work until late into the night or even into the next day. We work ourselves to the bone because we have to maintain scholarships and still be able to pay the bills we have. It’s insane that we’re expected to work so much for so little.

According to the National Congress of State Legislation, over 15 states have gone into 2019 with higher minimum wage. Yet Kansas stays at $7.25. It’s been that way for almost 10 years, ever since the federal minimum wage was changed in 2009. Two of our neighboring states, Colorado and Nebraska, are over $2 more than us. There is no reason Kansas can’t raise minimum wage. It is unrealistic and unfair to expect people to make it through life on $7.25.

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