Many state governments have been considering raising the minimum wage after workers from businesses such as McDonald’s have been protesting for several years in order to raise the minimum wage from often under ten dollars to fifteen dollars. Known as the Fight for Fifteen, it has been featured in the news often in recent months because of the number of people protesting for it.

People are fighting for a higher minimum wage because they think it will improve their quality of life, especially those who rely on it as their only source of income. However, there are also fears that raising the minimum wage could have consequences as well, like decreasing the number of jobs available. Employers would have to pay a significant amount more to each worker, so they might not make enough money to pay all of their employees, resulting in layoffs or increased prices on their products to compensate. However, right now it is difficult to predict what the affects will be in any given area.

Tania Nasrin, a senior, has a job that pays minimum wage, and she believes that “the minimum wage should be raised to $15 because then my job would pay me more and I would have more money to use for shopping.”

It has also become a topic discussed by presidential candidates, with Bernie Sanders supporting the change, while Donald Trump wants to keep the minimum wage on the same path that it has been. PResidential candidate Hillary Clinton supports a $15 minimum wage, but only in some areas and not others, according to USA Today.

California’s governor Jerry Brown recently made a deal that will raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2022, according to USA Today. The governor of New York Andrew Cuomo has proposed raising to $15 in New York City by 2019, and throughout the entire state by 2021.

The current minimum wage in Connecticut is $9.60, with plans to raise it to $10.10 in 2017.  It was the first state to approve the plan in 2014 by President Barack Obama to raise the minimum wage to $10 by 2017. Though a significant change at the time, it is now being overshadowed by the fight to raise it to $15.  As of right now, there are no plans to raise Connecticut’s minimum wage to $15, but it may come in the future if more states continue to increase theirs to $15.

Though raising the minimum wage may solve some problems and be beneficial, it could also have unintended consequences that can hurt the very people it was intended to help. Either way, it is a big issue and will impact many people in the future, no matter the decision.