Civic Issue #5: To Increase or Not to Increase: The Issue of a $15 Minimum Wage
“Increase it to $15 an hour.”
“No, that will throw everything out of whack.”
“People need a livable wage.”
“But, inflation will catch right up!”
If you either work or follow politics, there is a decent chance that you have heard someone bring up the issue of increasing the federal minimum wage at one point or another. The above arguments are only a few of the many that help to characterize our national conversation on this very contentious issue.
It is clear that many people do not share similar viewpoints on the topics for a variety of reasons, from having a low-earning job to caring about the economic impacts of a federal rise on minimum wage. But what does each side believe is the best solution?
Before I get into that, I would like to hit on a few foundational components of this conversation on minimum wage. According to the International Labour Organization, minimum wage is defined as “the minimum amount of remuneration that an employer is required to pay wage earners for the work performed during a given period, which cannot be reduced by collective agreement or an individual contract.” In short, as many of you likely know, minimum wage is the absolute smallest amount of money that a wage-worker can earn in a given period of time, and it is put in place so that employers cannot offer an unreasonably small or unfair amount of money to their employees. In the United States, the minimum wage is set at $7.25. It is also important to note that the minimum wage for a specific state, city, or company can be greater than the federal minimum wage, as pointed out by Debt.org, but it is illegal for any of the three entities to fall beneath the federal wage.
As I have done in nearly all of these posts, I would like to point out that not every member of the Right or Left agrees with their respective side of the political continuum on every issue, minimum wage included. However, for the sake of making this blog post relatively straightforward and easy to follow, I intend to include arguments that are relatively generalizable to each side of the political spectrum.
The Left, as a generality, is a proponent of the raise in the United States’s federal minimum wage. Many members of the Left support a nation-wide raise to $15 an hour, where others support a raise to a smaller-than-15 but larger-than-7.25 wage. As represented by a graphic from the Pew Research Center, most 2016 Hillary Clinton supporters (a little over 80%) supported this rather drastic raise. This statistic encapsulates very recent attitudes from the Left towards the general idea of a federal minimum wage increase.
Many politicians are outspoken in the debate to institute a federal increase as well. There have been numerous bills proposed in Congress that have been aimed at addressing this “wage emergency,” such as the Senate’s Raise the Wage Act of 2017 (Congress.gov) and a House bill of the same name but for the year 2019 (Congress.gov). Bernie Sanders, a prominent member of the Senate, has campaigned on economic equality (including this wage raise) and, so, has appealed to many on the Left for this reason. Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have also spoken up on behalf of such issues more recently.
The Left, and more specifically, progressives, largely concern themselves with ensuring social and economic equality. Accordingly, the minimum wage issue one of the main priorities for this demographic. They argue that the current minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is much too meager a wage for someone to live an affordable and/or comfortable lifestyle. They believe that, in order to adjust for inflation, a wage raise is a necessary tool to help a large group of workers who struggle to make ends meet (Vox).
The Right, on the other hand, holds a different view. They believe that it would be economically disadvantageous to raise the minimum wage to $15. A typical Right-wing view is that even if there are positive short-term effects of raising the federal minimum wage, inflation would ultimately raise to match the circumstance, thus devaluing the raised wage altogether. An article by Investopedia states: “Former McDonald’s CEO Ed Rensi says a higher minimum wage will cost jobs and lead to the closing of many small businesses. In theory, raising minimum wage forces businesses to raise prices, which spurs inflation.” The belief here is that raising the minimum wage will prompt businesses to raise prices in order to compensate for the higher wages their employees would be earning. Consequently, inflation would increase other financial dimensions which would work to devalue the wage in the end. This could also result in the closing of smaller business and firms, as Forbes delves into.
Another Right-wing argument against a $15 minimum wage is that that setting such a controversial and potentially dangerous wage-floor borders on a government overreach. When Obama proposed an increase in the minimum wage to $10.10 for some federal workers a few years ago during his State of the Union address, the response was unpopular. Pam Bondi, the then-Florida Attorney General said that Obama’s move was “an overreach by the federal government…never been seen before” (USA Today). That was an increase of a few dollars. The outrage, one could reasonably assume, would be much larger today with plans to more than double that $7.25.
Also noteworthy is one of the fundamental reasons why Right think a $15 minimum wage is so problematic. According to the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, in a short article, it was said there should be a focus on adjusting the skill levels of workers, instead of the minimum wage, because it invigorates our economy and pushes for more competition.
My thoughts on the issue are somewhat mixed. It is definitely true that something needs to be done in order to allow people to get a livable wage. I do not want to see anyone suffer, something that I think can be said of most other Republicans, Democrats, or Americans. I think that is unfortunate that any that works should have to struggle with finances, especially when they were in a rough situation and higher education might not have been a solid option. (Although, trade school…)
However, I also believe that such a wage increase would be a bad idea. There would definitely have to be catch up from businesses in order to account for this large wage increase, which would have a ripple effect throughout the companies and then the economy as a whole. I also think that, if wage increases were necessary, they should be handled at smaller levels of power. This allows states or cities (and so on) to determine wage prices that are best for their area and not the (diverse, broad, and heterogeneous) country as a whole. Finally, I believe that our system is competitive for a reason. I think that people should be paid for the skillset and work they do. I do not think that working at a fast food restaurant is worth $15/hour. The required skill set can be found in a 15 year old, and they definitely don’t deserve a “living wage” for it. I think raising the minimum wage would devalue education as well, because it would position people earning $15/hour more in pace with those who attended college in order to make a more sizable salary. I think the competitiveness of our system is a blessing as well as a curse.
What can we do moving forward?
- We need to find appropriate sources that are as up-to-date and objective as possible. As explained by Quartz, there are a multitude of studies that show favorable inclinations towards both raising the minimum wage and staying the same. These studies are completed by usually reputable economists as well. One must possess a prudent mindset when reading these studies and look into the future to see possible outcomes. If we must parse through many sources, we should do it realistically.
- We need to find an intersection between the issues. Many people approach this issue from a logical standpoint, while others invoke a humanity dimension in the argument. One must find the point at which everyone can agree moving forward is both a solution that considers the realities of a wage increase while also understands and accounts for struggles and lack of opportunities along the way. This can be a sliding scale, however, so we must find some semblance of common ground.
- Pursue discussions tactfully, and don’t make the assumption that someone is asking for money because they are lazy or that someone is refusing to raise the minimum wage because they are greedy. Either could be true, but it is not true by default. Assess someone’s point-of-view before rebutting what they say.
Whether its by convincing others or finding that common ground, we must, can, and will find a solution on this issue.
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