Conservatives said that raising the minimum wage would lead to ruin. It hasn’t.
Photo: David McNew/Getty Images The idea that the federal minimum wage should be raised to $15 has now become so mainstream that most Democratic candidates for president have endorsed it. But as the movement gains steam, so does conservative resistance. Raise the minimum wage, some economists and conservative commentators warn, and American workers will suffer. Ed Rensi, the former CEO of McDonald’s, told Fox Business that a $15 minimum wage “will drive inflation like crazy.
But June 17 marked the longest period of stagnation in the history of the federal minimum wage. It hasn’t been raised since 2009 — and that neglect has created real economic hardship for low-wage workers. When the minimum wage doesn’t keep pace with inflation, the purchasing power of that wage shrinks; by failing to act, the federal government has essentially cut real wages for these workers.
Anna Godoey and Michael Reich told reporters that they examined wage variations within states to find out exactly what happens when policy raises local minimums closer to the national median wage. That strategy distinguishes their research from other studies, which have tended to focus on state- or citywide data; altogether, they studied 51 minimum wage increases of varying extents in what they classified as low-wage counties, located in 45 states.
Godoey and Reich’s research isn’t anomalous. Previous IRLE research found that six major U.S. cities — Oakland, Chicago, and San Francisco among them — didn’t experience significant job losses after they raised their minimum wages. And last December, the latest installment in the University of Washington’s ongoing study of Seattle’s minimum-wage hike found that people working anywhere from 600 to 700 hours per year before the increase received higher pay after the policy took effect.
Put in practical terms, the new Berkeley study is further evidence that workers, and not the nation’s conservative columnists, are right. Bills like the Raise the Wage Act of 2019, which would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024, aren’t just liberal performance art but sound policies that would meaningfully reduce poverty without driving vulnerable people out of work.
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