Posted on 02/01/2021 6:00:06 AM PST by Red Badger
Progressive lawmakers this week formally launched an effort to hike the US minimum wage, introducing legislation to gradually raise it from $7.25 to $15 an hour.
The proposed increase is much larger than those in the recent past, but supporters argue it is warranted because it has been more than a decade since the wage was lifted, and the current minimum wage is too little for life in the United States.
First enacted by Congress in 1938 as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the wage has been amended several times, most recently in 2007, when Congress voted to lift it gradually from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour.
Since that time, several states and local governments have raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour or to other levels both higher and lower.
Of the 50 states, 21 currently honor the federal level of $7.25, while the remaining states have a higher minimum.
Twenty-five states currently prohibit cities and counties from setting a higher local wage than the state level, according to Resourceful Compliance, which tracks labor law.
Under legislation introduced by Democrats in the House and Senate, the minimum wage would rise to $9.50 an hour three months after the law is enacted, and then to $15 in four intervals over a five-year period.
The proposal also raises base pay for waiters and other employees who rely on tips, and directs the US labor secretary to annually calculate the median hourly wage of all employees.
In years where the median increases, the federal minimum wage would be raised by the same percentage.
Economists have long debated whether the economic lift from boosting workers' purchasing power more than offsets the added wage burden on businesses. There is no consensus on the matter.
"There has been a debate for years," said Gregory Daco, Oxford Economics' chief US economist, noting that some studies have shown it can cause job losses, while others have not.
Even the same study can be interpreted differently.
Critics of the higher wage point to a finding in a 2019 Congressional Budget Office report that said lifting the level to $15 an hour would result in 1.3 million workers losing their jobs.
But defenders of the measure noted that the same report said the proposal would lift 1.3 million people out of poverty and boost wages for as many as 27 million more workers, arguing these benefits more than counter the lost jobs.
There is no consensus regarding the effects, as shown in Seattle, which in 2014 became the first major US city to adopt a $15 minimum wage.
A 2018 study from the University of Washington said the policy reduced total payroll in low-income jobs, with wages rising by three percent but hours dropping by six to seven percent.
But a 2017 study by the University of California, Berkeley found the policy increased wages in the food services industry with no employment loss.
Howard Wright, the chief executive of the Seattle Hospitality Group and the co-author of the 2014 measure, said he largely discounts the conflicting appraisals of the Seattle policy.
"Our economy has been booming so strongly until Covid," said Wright.
Research Germany’s economy in the 1920’s-early 30’s..
It’s at OUR doorstep.
While everyone is worried about illegals, and Indians taking our tech jobs, you better watch what the left hand is doing. AI is about to hit us in a big way. It is only a matter of time before customer service will be totally AI. It is even cheaper then using customer service people in Manila. There is one company that claims it will start producing 10,000 AI life like robots for face to face customer service work in the next couple of years. You already talk to an AI customer service rep when you call companies like AT&T. As AI becomes more advanced, next ten years, you will never know if you are speaking to a AI or a human. Millions of jobs especially in government will gradually disappear. It is only a matter of time before you speak to a machine at McDonald's. They already do not need cashiers, it is just cheaper to hire a cashier then to buy a machine. That will change soon enough.
So by all means artificially inflate a workers value via government dictate, watch as jobs disappear to be replaced by AI because they do not need insurance or collect unemployment.
Yes, because many of their wage scales are based on a given premium above the minimum wage.
Oh I agree to all of this. Add to the comical situation where you open the gate to 15-odd million illegals getting sudden visas, and now expecting real pay (not the $5 to $6 an hour they had been getting paid), and discovering that the ‘old’ bosses won’t hire them, and the majority have no real chance to now find work in a ‘downward’ spiral economy.
All of this increase business should have been a state by state affair, and not pushed as some national agenda.
The next four years will be rough, and a lot of people are not prepared for the mess approaching.
Well, in reality the government can’t increase the actual minimum wage. The actual minimum wage is zero. Increasing the nominal minimum wage just ensures that there will be more people making the actual minimum wage.
The fact that is ignored by those pushing for increasing the minimum wage is that working a minimum wage job is, for the vast majority of people, a temporary condition. Most people acquire experience at their minimum wage job and parlay that experience into a higher-paying job, either with the current employer or somewhere else. Minimum wage jobs are great for kids in high school and college or for older people who have retired but are still healthy and want to make some money to supplement their retirement income. They are also fine as “get your foot in the door” jobs for those just emtering the workforce. If someone is still making min wage after several years of working, though, they should probably be looking in the mirror and trying to figure out why TT hat is and how to do better rather than relying on government imposed pay increases that might just price them out of the work force entirely.
Next if you’re not in a Union you don’t get too work , Nancy’s Dream come true
The is no data to back up the assertion that raising the minimum wage increases unemployment. You can be against the increase but that reason is specious.
Next the unions will demand raises because it’s not fairIt pushes up all hourly wages. In 2012 I could pay college students $12/ hr for online tutoring. Now I have to start them at $17. I do not like raising my prices on my clients (I have the most affordable academic support services around), so I've for the most part have had to absorb the cost.
The democrats will never raise the minimum wage to $15.00/hr. Why? A married couple both making a minimum wage at that level would no longer qualify for any government assistance and the Democrats DO NOT WANT THAT POWER OVER the “POOR” TO BE ELIMINATED.
Cashiers are not needed when you buy the big mac meal on your phone.
Macdonalds has finally implemented the system in use in China for years. You get the Mcdonalsd ap, place the order. the ap takes payment from your credit card and pays mcdonalds. You show the transaction on your phone and get your food.
Theire is no”machine” there is a server in the cloud
Amen........ right on
Only 6% of US workers are in a union. People around here think unions have the same power they had in the 1950’s which is total BS.
Who will do the work?
minimum wage was $1.25 in 1964, the last year coins contained silver. if you were paid $1.25 in five quarters, those 5 quarters - of 90% silver - would contain 0.9 ounces of silver. That’d be $27 as of this moment.
It’s not just the job attrition. As a result of the higher competition for fewer jobs, employee benefits and employer flexibility go down.
If there’s a line of people waiting to get hired, employers don’t have to extend benefits or privileges to keep workers.
If the minimum wage is increased a 1/4 pounder w/ cheese will cost $5,434.33 each!!!! /sarcasm
We could instead lower min wage to .25/hr then everything would be dirt cheap, almost free!!!! /sarcasm
I have been in Union negoations for a while.
I have yet to see a contract based on a multiplier of minimum wage. It may exist, but in the industries I have played in that is not how it is. This includes states where it is already $15
Now, if the MW goes to 15, you will pressure on the next contract to go up.
“How exactly does that happen (artificaly lowered wages)? Lots of people work low wage and then go get a better job. Is somebody stopping them from doing that?”
1. Illegal immigrants
2. Record # H-1b’s
3. Record # refugees
4. Offshoring of factories in record numbers.
5. Not keeping MW to set with inflation.
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