Douglas Schoen (The Hill, 2/24/21) wrote that including a minimum wage increase in the Covid relief package “will likely ensure the bill’s failure in the Senate,” because “some moderate Democrats and almost all Republicans are likely to oppose it.”
As Democrats push to include a $15 federal minimum wage in the Covid stimulus package, many media reports have been giving the false impression that it’s an idea far outside the mainstream.
CNN (2/21/21) labeled the $15 minimum wage a “controversial measure.” The Hill (2/18/21) wrote, “The minimum wage increase is one of the most divisive parts of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid relief package.”
At the New York Times (2/21/21), Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s opposition to including the wage measure prompted this analysis:
Mr. Manchin’s position is also bolstered by a political reality that places moderate voters at the forefront—a fact that Mr. Biden’s White House is keenly aware of. For Democrats to maintain their House majority in the midterm elections next year, they must hold seats in Republican-drawn districts that are often populated by moderate suburban voters. In the Senate, where Democrats are seeking to expand their razor-thin control of the chamber in 2022, they must secure tough statewide victories in places like North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
But however “moderate” such voters might be, they’re likely to support the measure. The latest polling (Quinnipiac, 1/28–2/1/21) finds 61% of the public backs a $15 minimum wage, with only 36% opposed. A 2019 Pew poll that broke support down by party and ideology found that even among Democrats (and independents who lean Democratic) who identify as moderate or conservative, a whopping 82% favor the wage hike, and that 59% of Republicans and Republican leaners who identify as moderate or liberal back it as well. On Election Day in Florida, where Trump won by 3 percentage points, voters also backed a $15 minimum wage ballot initiative by nearly 22 percentage points—which clearly undermines Manchin’s position rather than bolstering it.
The LA Times (2/17/21) reported that Biden, described as “a pragmatist who spent decades in the Senate,” was worried that a minimum wage hike would be deemed “inappropriate” for reconciliation.
Yet terms like “moderate” (and similar journo favorite “pragmatic“) pepper reporting about the minimum wage hike to describe those who oppose it on both sides of the aisle. The LA Times (2/17/21), describing Biden “pumping the brakes” on keeping the minimum wage hike in the relief bill, labeled him a “pragmatist,” and explained that “some moderate Democratic senators have expressed concern about the wage hike.” At the New York Daily News (1/30/21), “pro-business GOP moderates oppose the hike.”
Yet for all the professed concern, $15 per hour wouldn’t even be a living wage in many parts of the country, as a CNBC report (2/21/21) pointed out. A study by Dean Baker (CEPR, 1/21/20) noted that if the minimum wage had kept pace with gains in productivity—as it did from 1938 through 1968—it would today not be $15 an hour, but $24. In other words, it’s a policy that’s not just popular, it’s also hardly extreme.
In corporate media, it seems, the minority view that opposes a living wage can also be the “moderate” one—so long as it’s “pragmatically” courting business interests.
Featured image: Graph from CEPR (1/21/20) comparing the actual minimum wage in inflation-adjusted dollars to a hypothetical minimum wage that kept pace with productivity.
Would a $15 minimum wage apply in small towns with mom ‘n pop restaurants and businesses? Wal Mart or Target could easily manage an increase in minimum wage. So doesn’t this benefit large corporations and reduce competition from small businesses in all but the most densely populated cities?
Kyle,
A Federal minimum wage means it goes national, so yes, Ma and Pop employers would have to raise their employees wages. Most small businesses everywhere in the U.S. right now are well over $10/hour.
This is the longest period of time (or one of them) we’ve gone without a Federal Minimum Wage increase.
That whole “what’s good for New York is bad for Idaho” is such b.s., and so provably false (naysayers have been spewing that nonsense since the minimum wage became law.)
Here is another sad fact about the gridlock going on in 2021 over raising the minimum wage:
I just stumbled across an article written in FORBES of all places, six years ago – 2015 – and even then FORBES argued for it.
The article is titled “The 7 Most Dangerous Myths About A $15 Minimum Wage.”
The overall idea, implicit in your question, ie: “that a minimum wage increase would be bad for employers” is one of the 7 “myths.”
Another thing Kyle,
Here’s what I know to be the case in one example – A friend of mine runs a small trucking company, relative to your point; most small Ma and Pop businesses actually fully employ their workers, whereas the megastores, and larger employers do not.
By, “fully employ”, I’m talking they actually give their workers 40 or more hours per week. This means that small businesses are already doing more (in most cases) in terms of overall wages and compensation.
Small businesses, because they work their employees 32 hours or more per week, are required by law to pay for ACA, L&I, and other Workmen’s Compensation. These are extra expenses that places like Walmart have manipulated the system in order to avoid, by under employing their workers ie; giving them less than 32 hours per week.
Gig workers are even worse off, being taken advantage of by not being paid for overtime, not being covered for on-the-job injuries, and illegally being classified as “private contractors”, by greedy-ass “employers” and company owners who are billionaires.
So already, the bigger competitors have not been paying and compensating at equal levels of their smaller competitors. Walmart pays so low that it even has SNAP and Welfare applications on site that it offers to its workers. That is so pathetic.
Long story short, small businesses are already doing more in terms of wages and overall compensation, than do bigger employers. This is why a higher hourly wage hardly even effects a Ma and Pop small business. If anything, it allows them to hire more people to spread the work load across, instead of working fewer at higher overtime rates.
Kyle my bad…
The FORBES article is actually a clarifying and fact checking piece of a “Salon Magazine” article of the same title (The 7 Most Dangerous….). The Forbes writer goes through and clarifies each of the myths that Salon brought up….
Just so I’m not talking out of my ass here (too late)….thought it’d be wise to add that.