Income inequality is the concept that workers in specific fields make less money compared to their counterparts in other fields, relative to what workers in those fields were earning in the past. Higher income families have seen a larger increase in their financial gain, and low income families have experienced a much less significant gain in the same period of time. Raising the minimum wage from the current $7.25 to $10.10 would help alleviate the financial burden on families that are currently at or below the poverty line, without causing significant financial repercussions for families making six times the poverty level or higher.
Considering the disproportional gains that the highest income families have seen in the last 30 years, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that raising minimum wage will result in offsetting some of the disparity and help the overwhelming majority of the country. Doing so will increase standard of living and ultimately boost the economy in the long run, assuming that increasing the wages of the majority of the country will provide them with money to put back into the economy. This will also potentially provide low income families to provide higher education for themselves or their children, increasing the quality of work provided by American citizens. By increasing the quality of work, more people will have the opportunity to obtain jobs that were previously outside of their abilities.
The potential downside of raising the minimum wage is the potential for employers to cut jobs due to the increase cost of paying each employee. While this sounds like something that would be cause for concern, jobs would be created due to increase in spending by the low income consumer.