Minimum Wage Increase

Maximum Bang for the Buck

What do you think about a minimum wage raise? My take is that higher earnings would improve the overall standard of living for minimum wage workers, would circulate more money back into the general economy, go a long way in dealing with cost of living increases, and who the hell can make it on $7-9/hour?

James Leynse/Corbis/Getty

Also, the median worker annual pay compared to CEOs hovers from 6:1 to 434:1, mostly in the higher range. Check out these figures. Here is an article of interest weighing the pros and cons. And, finally, the Economic Policy Institute makes a very compelling case for the wage increase.

One of the items included in the coronavirus relief package, which the administration hopes to pass by the end of the month, is the inclusion of an overwhelmingly popular $15 federal minimum wage bill. Oddly enough, two democrats oppose this bill, one being our very own Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), a DINO, methinks. (the other being Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin)

"What's important is whether or not it's directly related to short-term Covid relief. And if it's not, then I am not going to support it in this legislation," Sinema told Politico. "The minimum wage provision is not appropriate for the reconciliation process... And it shouldn't be in there." Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, who enforces the Byrd Rule, has yet to determine whether the minimum wage measure is within the rules of reconciliation.

Kroger, which operates about 2,750 stores, has attracted particular attention because it pursued stock buybacks last year and because its chief executive, Rodney McMullen, earned more than $20 million in 2019. The median compensation of a Kroger employee that year was $26,790, or a ratio of 789 to 1, according to company filings. (They were so far off the charts they weren’t even mentioned in the pay scale link above!)

Molly Kinder, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who has researched retailers’ pay during the pandemic. found that 13 of the largest retail and grocery companies in the United States earned $17.7 billion more in the first three quarters of 2020 than they did a year earlier, but most stopped offering extra compensation to their associates in the early summer.

A recent MSN article stated that “Raising the minimum wage to $15 would reduce the number of people in poverty by 900,000 and increase the pay of about 27 million workers, according to a CBO report released earlier this month. But it would also cut employment by 1.4 million workers and increase the federal budget deficit by $54 billion over a decade.”

"I'm very proud of the strong arguments our legal team is making to the parliamentarian that raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is not 'incidental' to the federal budget and is permissible under the rules of reconciliation," the Vermont independent Bernie Sanders told CNN on Saturday.

Hey, if it’s Bernie, I’m in.

Also, this just in: The minimum wage for City of Tucson employees has been bumped up to $15 an hour and was passed unanimously by the mayor and city council. Mayor Regina Romero tweeted, "I have been advocating we take this step as an organization for several years now-- After passing unanimously, this will affect over 2,000 City employees. It is not only the right thing to do, but it is the smart thing to do for the workers of the City of Tucson!"

Now, marvel at these wise words.