Minimum pay for minimum work

This article was originally posted November 10, 2013 on my blog, but I recently found it and thought a little polishing is all that's needed to repost. WARNING: some mild language and a lot of progressive ideas.

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Minimum pay for minimum work? That’s the way it should be, but it’s not. I know people that sit on their asses all day doing fuck-all and still seem to bring home enough money to comfortably support a family of 5. I don’t get how anyone can say that fast food, service, health care, and labor workers are lazy and don’t deserve to be paid more than minimum wage. Or, in the case of our health care workers, 125% of minimum wage⁰.

Oh, I got right into it, didn’t I? Well, let me give you some points of reference.

I was reading an article today (11-10-13) that gave me hope. You see, I live in Washington state. Our unemployment rate is 7.8%¹, our minimum wage is $13.50 an hour, and our small businesses employ 51.4% of the workforce². Gas prices vary by area, but they range from $2.54 – $3.19 a gallon. And milk is $2.89 a gallon in most places here (I hear downtown Seattle can be as much as $4.50 a gallon, but I digress). We’re doing ok considering the economy is tanking pretty hard. It could be better. We're one of the few states in the union that increases minimum wage based on local inflation. The hope lies in the promise of progress and the influence it brings.

Higher wages do, however, attract more skilled workers and reduce employee turnover, Mr. Dube said, and over time that can change the composition of the work force. – NYTimes.com

Mr. Dube is making a profound statement here. Reducing turnover is one of those magical business ideologies that every employer seeks with impunity. There’s a tough balance between being profitable and supporting employees in a way that makes them content, and willing to work. When the value of an employee is minimized, you get higher turnover and less job loyalty. Training is expensive. Each new employee costs the company money and time. More money than would be paid in decent wages and, even, dare I say, extended benefits. The more time spent on a project, the more money the company bleeds. This should be obvious, but penny pinching employers the world over suffer this insurmountable challenge to their principles in ignorance. Someone should tell them.

With tech jobs going overseas and the health industry booming due to our rapidly increasing waistlines and shitty diets, we’re stuck with a low paid workforce. The middle class is disappearing because of this. At what point are we going to collectively decide that people should be paid for the work they do? A CEO should not be paid millions of dollars until their hardest workers have been fairly compensated. Overpaying the higher ups doesn’t inspire a worker to work harder when they’re already working their fingers to the bone. It creates resentment and further divides the two classes. If we're not going to bring home our outsourced jobs, then we need to pay the service and health industries more money. We are becoming a country fully dependent on our service workers. They should be paid accordingly.

Our economy will only recover with a strong middle class. Yes, that is a main liberal talking point, but it’s absolutely true. No one spends the way the middle class does and only the poor outnumber the middle class. Increasing the middle class > increases local spending > increases the economy > increases job creation. BOOM! Recovery imminent.

If only there was a way to bolster the middle class...

• free education?
• socialized medicine separate from employment?
• student loan forgiveness?
• tax breaks for homeowners making less than $250k a year?

I can get more progressive, but you can see where I'm taking this. I'll just leave it.

Supporters, citing a report by the liberal research group Puget Sound Sage, said that travelers accounted for more than two-thirds of airport commerce, and that increasing pay to $15 an hour would inject $54 million into the local economy. – NYTimes

If you don’t immediately see the benefit of pumping $54 million into a local economy, then I can’t help you. This statement alone gets me excited, teary eyed and hopeful, but include the idea of more satisfied workers, and you have a no brainer. This should be happening. This needs to happen. Why isn’t this already happening? Well, it's happening here in Washington State and a few other places are adopting the higher minimum wage, but can you imagine if minimum wage increased with inflation nationally? Can you see how amazing the economy could be? I can and I'm hopeful³.

All other arguments aside, really give this some thought. How much will it hurt the economy for highly profitable companies to pay their workers a fair wage? Really think about that.

And the only way it’d hurt a smaller business is if the higher wages DIDN’T increase local spending. Never mind the fact that there are projected tax breaks for smaller businesses that cannot afford to pay employees the minimum wage during the transition period. The politicians proposing the increase aren't trying to raw dog the small business owner. That's what the lobbyists and politicians who're fighting the increase are trying to do.

It's time. Increase the minimum wage and let's make america spend again. Capitalism demands it.

Sources:

⁰ https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/certified-nursing-assistant-salary/wa

¹ https://esd.wa.gov/newsroom/september-2020-monthly-employment-report

² https://smallbiztrends.com/small-business-statistics#:~:text=99.9%25%20of%20all%20businesses%20are,workforce%2C%20on%20a%20percentage%20basis.

³ https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/increasing-minimum-wage-would-help-not-hurt-economy-n1244586