The Likelihood of a Minimum Wage Increase

• Author: Jacob Greene
• Posted: 2024-03-16

With the "Fight for 15" and many other protests and initiatives raging on in America, it's very clear that the vast majority of jobs offered to the American people are not paying nearly well enough to help Americans cover their basic necessities. No matter where one stands on the political spectrum, it's a fair bet that you do not believe that a person should have to work 40 hours a week for their entire life just to end up still struggling to pay their bills. This is why millions of people are advocating for a higher minimum wage, and it's also why government is considering passing a federal minimum wage of $15 per hour. Just how close are we to seeing this? Some speculate it will become the most popular issue in 2021, on the back of eviction moratoriums and no more federal unemployment benefits.

Though which industries are going to be affected by this? Big box stores and huge corporations like Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Apple, etc, already pay $15 an hour to start on average, and more than that for specialty starter positions like stocking and grocery pick-up carters. Basically, the only industry left not offering wage increases to workers are all the many thousands of fast food restaurants out there. Most of these places still pay minimum wage, and even their managers don't make $15 per hour. This is the case for the big franchises like McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell, and a few others. They pay low wages yet do huge business. These places are clocking record numbers under COVID, yet their employees are leaving in droves because they don't pay well.

The likelihood that the federal government increases the minimum wage next year is very high. However, this might not be the good news people think it is. The economy has a way of adjusting, and every time there's a wage increase, the end result is even less buying power for the dollar.

A Living Wage Vs. Inflation

The fact of the matter is that what a person makes per hour at a job has far less to do with their quality of life than how much the cost of living is around them. While a lot of people claim that America in the 1950s was a horrible time of bigotry and oppression, it was actually the biggest boom period for the middle-class in this planet's history. Yes, not everyone got to participate in the economy, and that is really a shame. Though speaking strictly financially and of spending power, one person on a low income could afford a house, a car, to raise multiple children, and to spend their summers on vacation. That's just how powerful the dollar was two generations ago.

These days, the government could force the minimum wage to be $100 theoretically, but if rent is $5k a month, and milk is $20 per gallon and gas is $30, etc, then we're at the same place we are now. A lot of economists point to inflation being the reason we need wage hikes to begin with. If you raise the minimum wage from, say, $5 to $7, people think that $80 more a week is making a difference. However, within a year, the cost of living increases more than that, and your $7 per hour ends up buying less than the $5 did. This has been America's cycle now for 60 years.

We allow corporations to control this entire nation, and whenever they feel like charging more for their products to maximize their profits, the government spins this as "inflation" and the two political parties blame each other and fight it out in media. What it is, factually speaking, is an unchecked system of corporate greed allowed to run roughshod over hundreds of millions of people, and the people have absolutely zero say in how this practice is conducted. There are 340 million people in America. Every single one of them could be against a financial practice, and all it would take is literally for one single federal judge to do what they want, and the voices of the people do not matter.

So while there are millions of Americans out there fighting for a living wage, and rightfully so, the entire forest they miss due to that one giant tree is basically the cause of the issues. Runaway corporate greed, passed off as inflation, and hidden and bickered about for political gain. It doesn't matter how much Americans make in the short term as long as those long-term problems continue.