Rep. Todd, who posts here at the Blues, has an editorial in today’s Montgomery Advertiser addressing the need for an increase in the minimum wage.
I ran for office to make a difference in the lives of those for whom poverty has become a way of life and for whom a marginalized existence is all they have and may be all they have ever known. If we truly value others — children, single mothers, grandparents, neighbors — then we must begin the ambitious journey before us that leads to community wholeness and healing. The first step on this road is to provide workers a living wage.
To me there is no more important “family value” than that which rewards hard-working people with decent, honest wages that help support our families and communities. That is why I sponsored the Alabama Minimum Wage Law.
Consider these facts. If you make minimum wage in Alabama your annual pay is $10,700. That’s before taxes. According to the federal government, if you make minimum wage, you can only afford to pay $276 a month for housing.
Those earning minimum wage are also more likely to be single women that have children and also lack any kind of health care benefits, insurance, retirement and paid leave. They are powerless to break free of the cycle of poverty.
While I am pleased that our state’s economy is doing well, we must remember that we have left many people behind. More than 126,000 Alabamians make minimum wage and struggle to achieve basic financial security for themselves and their families. Not only is this wrong, but one could also argue that their purchasing ability is drastically shrinking and will itself bear a negative economic impact on our state.
I can tell you from personal experience that $276 a month, or even double that, isn’t going to buy you housing in any part of Birmingham that has really good schools. You know, the kind of schools that will provide the quality education that will help ensure that the kids of the people living on minimum wage won’t have to do the same.
I have heard all the arguments against raising the minimum wage, because they were the same ones we heard the last time we raised the minimum wage, more than 10 years ago. I have heard that to raise the minimum wage would mean the death of small business, even though most small businesses admit that they pay more than the minimum wage.
I have heard that it will reduce the number of jobs available because employers won’t be able to hire as many workers. While there might be a slight dip in the short term, history has demonstrated that it has no long lasting affect.
And before I get the inevitable comment that raising the minimum wage is somehow “robbing” business, please remember that businesses don’t exist without employees. Over the past ten years, we’ve seen one corporate scandal after another, with people like us losing jobs, pensions, and/or retirement income because top management cared more about getting rich beyond anything they could spend (Richard Scrushy, anyone?) than about the overall health of the businesses they were supposed to be running. Sparing a little of that largesse for the people who help to build the business and keep it running is a smart investment in the future. And the free market? It may be great in theory, but it doesn’t exist in the real world. Insisting on applying it to low-wage workers while staying silent on corporate welfare is a little hypocritical.
Alabama is one of five states that don’t have minimum wage laws. What Patricia is proposing is state legislation similar to a proposed federal measure, a phased increase over two years from $5.15/hour to $7.25/hour. Right now, the bill is buried in sub-committee, but I hear it might make a comeback.
I am all for raising the minimum wage. It’s appaling to me that it hasn’t been raised in 10 years! It did dawn on me, though, that there are many teenaged employees that work for extra money, not to support a family. I’m not sure we need to raise the 16 year old bus boy’s wage or the vet assistant that works after school for less than 10 hours a week the same amount as an adult. Should there be an age level that the higher wage kicks in? That sounds discriminatory, but common sense says there’s a difference between the single mother and the adolescent living at home. Just thinking out loud…
Unfortunately, that same argument has been used through the years to justify paying women less than men, because women didn’t “have” to work and men were supporting them. The bottom line is that work is work, regardless of who’s performing it. The standard should not be whether you “need” the job or not but whether you’re doing it. The employer can make the call on who to hire – and can choose that adult over that teenager if he/she wants to. If you have a lower wage for teenagers, then the employers who care only about keeping wages low will hire a bunch of teenagers and the person who “needs” a job won’t be able to get one. That’s why you need a minimum wage in the first place.
Thanks, Lisa. I knew in my heart that paying differently based on age was wrong. You voiced the reason very reasonably!