Minimum Wage Increase vs Skilled Workers

One of the big talking point in the new 1.9 Trillion COVID relief bill is an increase of the minimum wage to $15 an hour for jobs that require minimal skills, but how does this affect skilled jobs? One of the things that is discussed is how 1.4 million jobs will be lost, which is unacceptable. How this will hurt small businesses and look at hiring less people in favor for automation to cut cost. What about devaluing skilled jobs like nurses, teachers, other healthcare professions, skilled labors like HVAC, mechanics and many more? Why is the media ignoring this part, where people go to either trade schools or community college to get degrees in these fields that starts at $15 an hour or lower? How will the increase of the minimum wage affect businesses like construction, doctors offices, law offices, auto repair shops, airlines, media companies, grocery stores, and so on that rely on skilled workers?

Here is my personal view on this. I have an associates degree as a medical assistant which I spent two years at a trade school to get. While I was getting my degree I was working full time at a job in a call center that was paying me at the time $11 an hour to make calls to people to enroll into monitoring programs for health conditions like COPD, Congestive Heart Failure, Diabetes, Health Coaching, and Complex Care programs for Cancer and so on. These were programs that was part of peoples medical benefits with their insurance that they were not aware of. Now working at the call center it didn't require much skill besides having a high school degree. This would be considered a minimum required skill job, because the company would train the employee on the skills that is required to perform the job at hand. Being a medical assistant was different.

Medical assistant can do many things that a nurses can do such as, take vitals, patient intake, administer shots, give doctor ordered tests, and administer medications that was prescribed by a doctor, physician assistant, or a nurse practitioner. A medical assistant can also help with office work, such as updating patient files of test results, prescription renewals with the MD, PA or NP approval, set appointments for visits, enter insurance information for proper billing and so on. While I was in school for my degree as a MA, I was looking at jobs for medical assistants. Most jobs as a MA required not only a degree, but also two years experience in a clinical, medical office or hospital setting. Which is not easy to achieve if you are just starting out in the field. Most of the jobs as an medical assistant started out between $12.50-$14 an hour. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, medical assistants earns an average annual salary of $35,720 which is $17.17 per hour. The top 10% earns $48720 per year which isn't much in the grand scheme of things. I was lucky because during my internship at a Nephrology office, I was hired at the local blood bank. My starting job was transporting blood products from the blood center to the hospitals, and collecting the donations from mobile donation sites. That started at 12.50 per hour, I was able to eventually move to the mobile department and got trained to be a phlebotomist which allowed me to utilize my medical assistant skills and also gain the phlebotomy skill. Even with my transfer from one department to another I started as a trained medical assistant and newly on the job trained phlebotomist around $13.50 per hour. What's the point of this you may ask? Well think about it? If a person who went to school for a skill like being a medical assistant only starts at $15 and hour or less what does that mean if a job at a restaurant is given the same starting pay with no additional education required?

Right now federal minimum wage is at $7.25 and hour, here in Nevada it is $8.25 per hour for people with minimal skills. An entry level teacher annual salary in Las Vegas according to ziprecuiter.com is $35,252 which is about $16.95 an hour. Now let's say the federal minimum wage is raised to $15 and Nevada decides to add that extra $1 per hour to make it $16 per hour. The government had just made skilled jobs minimum wage jobs. Here is where we will have the job lose. If you make skilled jobs, which makes two times the amount above minimum wage, the same as minimal skill jobs you have took away the incentive of continuing education. Why would anyone want to go to college or a trade school for a skill that is going to be worth the same amount as working at a restaurant? Why would anyone would get student loans, pay for classes out of pocket, or go into debt if the additional education for those jobs if they are not getting better pay? Why would anyone want to spend 2-4 years in school if they are not going to make more money for being a skilled worker? Why would employers encourage continuing education such as tuition reimbursement while working?

Seventy percent of people employed in America are by small business. Most small business has a diversity of both skilled and entry level workers in order to operate. They are currently paying the skilled worker $15 and may pay an entry level worker $7.25 per hour. The business owner may have the opportunity to offer incentives like pay raises, and advancement for addition education to the entry level worker. What this would do is offer incentive to the entry level worker to be able to improve, and work more efficiently, gain experience, and create in some ways loyalty to the business. This allows the business to thrive and grow which creates more opportunities such as expansion, and create more skilled workers. What happens if the entry level worker was paid the same $15 an hour as a skilled worker because the minimum wage is now $15 an hour. One group may looked at being cut. Business may not be able to offer incentives for performance, education, or they may limit experience. It puts the business to choose either one group over the other. Some businesses may find that paying to train an entry level worker would be more cost affective then paying for a skilled worker and the continuing education that may be required. The opposite could be argued as well. The business may now require more experience and education for a position then to hire someone with limited skills.

Paralegals, HVAC, mechanics, and other skilled workers would suffer because their time and money to get additional education would be devalued. How about businesses that hires these skilled workers? If a company like a doctors office, law office, CPA's Air-Heat, plumbing, automotive and repair shops and so on have to pay more money for skilled workers, they may hire less. Education may then be devalued and would no longer be an incentive to improve quality of life. It may also discourage people to continue their education in these fields. There are many people who are now nurses, doctors, lawyers, judges, business owners, contractors that started with an associates degrees or certification of completion for a specific skill to get into those professions. Most skilled professions do require continuing education, with additional classes, seminars and so forth.

There are many people that goes to community college or trade schools to gain these skills because it takes less time then going to a four year university. Most universities don't offer these programs that makes it easy for people that are looking to get better jobs. If you raise the minimum wage for a job that requires little skill you may take away a whole working class that many industries benefits from.

My time at the blood bank as a "Donor Care Specialist" didn't require a formal degree. They only required a high school degree and does on the job training. My degree as a medical assistant did help. They paid very well, also offered the benefit of tuition reimbursement for continuing education. I had many co-workers that went on to become nurses, physician assistants. There have been people in the company that even became doctors, executives, lawyers and directors, because of the benefits that were offered to them. Would there have been that opportunity if they had started with a high minimum wage? Maybe, maybe not, but if the business had to make decision based on a an increase in minimum wage requirements they may not have been able to offer as many benefits.