By now, you’ve certainly chimed in on the exciting news that last week, in his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama called on Congress to support legislation to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. As if such a proclamation were not enough, President Obama even upped the ante when he pledged to mandate that contractors pay their federally funded employees such a wage. To college kids like yourselves, the benefits of raising the minimum wage are, well, obvious. Many of us don’t simply choose to but, out of financial necessity, work a part time job during our academic pursuits. Indeed, we have certain needs—you know, food and shelter, in addition to our tuition, which requires some extra income. Yet, these jobs, more often than not, only pay minimum wage or a little more, and despite our laborious work, we still leave college drowning in student loan debt. Needless to say, our college experiences exemplify the need to raise the minimum wage; however, imagine instead of merely working your way through school on an hourly wage of $7.25, you worked a full time job to support an entire family at the same level of income. Each year, you could only expect to earn $15,080, and in no state would you even be able to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment. And despite soaring corporate profits and stock prices taking place now during America’s economic recovery, the lowest earners in our nation have barely budged, deepening our socioeconomic inequality. Raising the minimum wage is perhaps the most hands-on approach to mitigating this intense disparity.
Ten dollars and ten cents per hour is really not that much to ask for. Had minimum wage risen with inflation over the last 40 years, as it sensibly should have, the lowest wage in the country would be $10.74, still over half a dollar more than the most recent proposal. As President Obama claimed, the federal minimum wage is worth 20 percent less when Ronald Reagan, the right-wing darling, was president. Popular support for the issue, too, is extremely high. In November, Gallup released a study documenting 76 percent of Americans who support an increased minimum wage, 69 percent of which also agreed such a wage should be tied to increasing inflation.
Of course, opponents of the proposal I’ve described like to scare people with the fragility of our economic recovery, claiming this “insensible” initiative would cost our workforce jobs. And to these people, there’s but one word to say: “No.” This is far from the truth, and there are a few reasons for this.
For one, a great majority of low-wage workers are working for corporations posting large profits—profits they can use to support their workers. Then, at a higher wage, worker productivity increases and results in the business earning more as well. In fact, studies tend to show slight economic gains due to increased local spending as a result of higher wages. So with all the evidence stacking up in favor a higher minimum wage, why don’t we do it? The economic sensibility and populist support are both in place, and the arguments against it are weak. Why doesn’t Congress vote today, right now, to mandate workers earn a living wage?
The problem isn’t that the argument doesn’t have merit. Rather, the crux of the issue is the extremity of Republicans in Washington. Perhaps you’ve noticed—the House of Representatives isn’t as populist and progressive as it has been before. Whether it be leading the charge to shutdown the government or failing to authorize Hurricane Sandy recovery funds, Republicans have, time after time, rejected commonsense legislation in the name of fiscal irresponsibility, er, I mean, conservatism. However, this issue doesn’t actually stem from the legislative process but instead from the realm of electoral politics. Indeed, in another age, it’s tenable that even some moderate Republicans would support such legislation. One study even showed that 67 Republicans in Congress did support raising the minimum wage at one time. But, in the post Citizens United era, Republicans are afraid of losing their seats to more fiscally extreme partisans under the auspices of well-funded interest groups. Should they support legislation improving the jobs of all low-wage workers, many Republicans fear we will actually lose their own (oh, the irony).
What I hope you and all my readers take away from this column (because I’m so popular and widely read) is that to resolve key legislative issues like raising the minimum wage isn’t necessarily to wage brutal legislative battles and make so many painful concessions. Rather, real electoral reform could significantly alleviate our deepest governmental problems. That in itself could be the greatest battle our generation will fight in Washington. We’ll certainly have to put together an unlikely and forceful popular movement to do it, but what’s there to lose if we do.
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