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.
Now you tell me how that owner is going cope with that wage increase and try and tell me it won't affect me as a customer...........
The jobless are one part of the problem.
Want to see another?
Head to a local nursing home and watch what happens when the minimum wage goes up and there’s less money to pay the more productive.
The push for automation has nothing to s with the minimum wage. If anything the stagnant min wage proves this. Automation is happening regardless of wage.
Ok less employees but the work load stays the same? Who picks up the slack?
Is that not also true for any increase in costs for the owner? The minimum wage has been static for 12 years yet costs have still gone up because the owner passes those costs on. Wages are no different.
The is a big restaurant/bar. What is it's gross revenue? What percent of revenue is the $163K? 2%, 5%?
Nobody.
And the residents end up paying for it.
Lessons on economics are everywhere if one just bothers to look.
The Cheap Labor Express( The GOP ) are masters at manipulating wages through unbridled LEGAL immigration.
That is a great point.
Also, it would cut down on the jobs managing public assistance.
There is a lot of money in the poor.
There is a lesson in policies to be learned here...
We actually agree on something. Weird...
Also, unions and workers do coercive comparisons on wage differentials and will try to maintain that spread. If your friend’s employees used to say “I’m earning twice the minimum wage.”, they will continue to try and maintain that wage spread, hence an upward pressure on non-minimum wages, too.
When I was 17 and 18, I baled hay in the summer. The last summer before I joined the military, I was paid $5 per hour (cash). I hired three other teenagers at $4 per hour. We worked 10-12 hour days, generally took us two days to finish the job. We did two hay crops per summer I would easily earn $200 (1974). If I was lucky another farmer would hire me for a day or two. I used $100 for new school clothes and the remaining $100 was my summer money. By 1984, the farmers were no longer hiring teenagers because farm work fell under minimum wage rules for the state and farmers had to pay insurance and unemployment insurance. Hire a teenager for cash and the farmer took a risk if somebody got hurt. We usually had at least one dumbass nail his leg with a bailing hook. That was a great way for me to earn what was a decent amount of money, buy school clothes and put gas in the car. Government labor laws put an end to that. Most farmers baling operations are completely automated now, all you need is one person to drive a tractor. With GPS, you won't even need a person to drive the tractor pretty soon. That is what happens when the federal government steps in and mandates things like minimum wage. You will lose a lot of entry level jobs.
In 1970 a new car was about a 1/3 of an annual average wage. Now a new cars equals the average annual wage.
I kinda doubt this. Look at average annual wage data for those who own a car. That wage is higher than average wage data.
I have heard it’s public sector union contracts.
The Biden people.
This is bill has the same stuff passed by the house in 2019.
the minimum wage is graduated until it hits 15 bucks and hour in 2025.
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