What difference can 70 cents make? If you're making minimum wage, 70 cents could make a big difference in your future paychecks. A bill proposing three 70-cent raises to the $5.15 minimum wage is being heard by the U.S. Senate this week. Already approved by the House of Representatives, the bill would eventually bring the federal minimum wage to $7.25.

Minimum wage should be increased, and it's likely that the Senate will agree.

While Congress debates the issue, more than a dozen states have already raised the minimum wage above the federal level of $5.15 an hour or have ballot initiatives set for November elections. As an impetus to move more U.S. citizens out of poverty and into a sustainable, stable income level, increasing minimum wage is necessary, and it's nice to see individual states taking the matter into their own hands.

The effects of this and any future raise in minimum wage, though, are only temporary. According to a briefing from the Joint Economic Committee, or JEC, an analysis of an increase in minimum wage in the 1990s showed that low-income families benefited the least. According to the briefing, many low-wage workers — like high school students — are actually members of higher-income families. More than 50 percent of the wage increase went to families bringing in incomes at least twice that of the poverty level. Of the rest of the increase, only 17 percent went to families below the poverty line.

With that evidence, it's important to point out that increasing minimum wage is a temporary remedy — it's not an answer to poverty. Instead of relying on creating more money in our elastic economy, more focus should be put on job creation and continuing education.

But raising the minimum wage has been shown to do just the opposite. According to the JEC, one side effect of raising the minimum wage is that it destroys low-skill jobs. Also, higher minimum wages can motivate more high school students to drop out.

Despite its drawbacks, raising the minimum wage is a measurable step toward reducing the gap between rich and poor. And it hasn't been raised since 1997. Nine years leaves a lot of time for economic fluctuation. We need to raise the minimum wage right now in order to catch up with inflation.

The hike is only a temporary fix, though. In the meantime we need to keep working toward a more permanent solution.