What are the Current Hot Topics in Economics?

Equal Pay

Women make up almost half of the workforce. In many instances, they are the sole or co-breadwinner in half of the American families with children. They receive more college and graduate degrees than men. Yet, on average, women continue to earn considerably less than men. Women, on average, earn less than men in nearly every single occupation for which there is sufficient earnings data for both men and women to calculate an earnings ratio.

Minimum Wage

The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour. There are 21 states and many cities that have a minimum wage higher than the federal level. Washington state has the highest at $9.32 and Oregon trails second at $9.10. Economic research firms have long argued that higher minimum wages cause firms to reduce employment, especially of low-wage workers, and thus they inflict damage on the U.S. economy. But two new papers provide powerful evidence that higher minimum wages in fact boost the conditions of workers—especially the least skilled and lowest paid among them—without doing broad economic harm.

Welfare Drug Testing

The goal of governments who provide these resources is to remove as much fraud as possible from the system. Then there is the eventual goal to help everyone find a meaningful job so that eventually the individual or household can be self-supportive.

Paid Sick Leave

A paid time off (PTO) policy combines vacation, sick time and personal time into a single bank of days for employees to use when they take paid time off from work. A PTO policy creates a pool of days that an employee may use at his or her discretion. At the height of the summer season, companies’ vacation plans are often put to the test. If your company experiences frequent issues when trying to handle the mass influx of requests that come in over the summer months, it may be time to consider a paid time off the bank as an alternative to a traditional vacation plan.

Welfare

In essence, welfare programs are a government subsidy that is paid directly to people with a qualifying income. In the United States, qualification requires a household income falls below a specific percentage of the poverty level. For several generations, benefits have been given out to people so they can have basic services, such as food access, without charge. The pros and cons of welfare show that it can be useful to help those who are in need, but there must be controls in place to limit abuse. There will always be a debate about who deserves to receive welfare benefits.