There are lots of reasons to support a nationwide increase in the minimum wage.
Certainly, one of the most compelling reasons is that employers who pay minimum wage salaries are ripping us off – ripping me off, ripping you off.
The harsh truth is that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to live and support any kind of family on minimum wage pay. So, if workers can’t live – buy food and clothing, pay rent, etc, – on what they earn, they must pay for these necessities some other way.
And that other way is through government programs that assist the poor.
Minimum wage workers live in poverty. A study by the University of California at Berkeley found that 73 percent of people who receive public benefits are people who work. And, nationwide, 63 percent of public benefits spending (food stamps, Medicaid and earned income tax credits) goes to families that work.
These workers are paid so little they are eligible for federal poverty programs. And it’s not just low wages. Eighty-seven percent of these workers don’t receive health benefits through work.
What it means is that you and I are paying low wage workers through our taxes because employers won’t pay their workers a living wage.You and I are uncompensated stockholders in minimum wage-paying corporations. In this unholy partnership, you and I pay the expenses, the corporations reap the profits.
How much do you and I pay? The nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization National Employment Law Project estimates taxpayers pay $3.8 billion a year through poverty programs to people who work for minimum wage corporations.
Quite a scam. I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to make up for what corporations should pay, but won’t.
More Top Picks Sheet
There may be some hope. Minimum wages seem to be rising. Twenty-nine states already have minimum wages above the disgraceful federal minimum of $7.25 an hour. Illinois’ minimum wage is slightly less disgraceful at $8.25 an hour.
And just recently, Los Angeles raised its minimum wage from $9 an hour to to $15 an hour by 2010. Similar wage hikes have been adopted or proposed in other major cities. Movement is in the right direction.
And it is particularly heartening to see that starting next year, the state of California will publish the names of employers with more than 100 workers on Medicaid and how much these companies cost California in public aid.
Good. Shine some light on the corporations that so blithely shift their costs onto us.
Illinois legislators take note.
Beyond state action, national legislation is needed. Congresssional Democrats are proposing a hike in the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020. But even this increase is hotly opposed by Republicans.
So, the battle’s outcome is undecided.
But progress?
Yes.
Paul Sassone is a freelance columnist for the Pioneer Press.