New York
“Time TV”
 — 

The final time Congress voted to extend the federal minimal wage, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns each nonetheless existed, Patrick Mahomes was simply 11 years outdated and Kamala Harris was San Francisco’s district lawyer.

That minimal wage hike in July 2007 lifted the pay flooring in the USA from $5.15 to $5.85 and allowed for 2 extra will increase to $7.25 in July 2009.

The federal minimal wage hasn’t budged since then.

Former President Donald Trump’s go to on Sunday to a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania highlights the longest interval and not using a nationwide improve within the federal minimal wage because it was established in 1938.

After briefly manning a McDonald’s fry station, Trump punted when requested by a reporter if he’s in favor of lifting the minimal wage.

“Effectively, I believe this: I believe these individuals work exhausting, they’re nice, and I simply noticed one thing, the method. It’s stunning. It’s a phenomenal factor to see,” Trump stated. “These are nice franchises, they produce a variety of jobs.”

Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday attacked Trump for that non-answer and reiterated her requires the next minimal wage with out specifying what precisely the brand new federal minimal wage needs to be.

Harris advised reporters forward of a marketing campaign cease in Birmingham, Michigan that she believes “we should elevate minimal wage.”

“My opponent Donald Trump doesn’t imagine we should always elevate minimal wage. And I believe everybody is aware of that the present federal minimal wage is $7.25 an hour, which signifies that the one who is working a full day and dealing full weeks will make $15,000 a yr, which is basically poverty wages,” Harris stated.

The Harris marketing campaign didn’t reply to “Time TV”’s request for touch upon how excessive she favors elevating the minimal wage.

Opponents of elevating the minimal wage typically argue that shifting too aggressively will kill jobs.

Michael Reich, chair of the Middle on Wage and Employment Dynamics on the College of California at Berkeley, advised “Time TV” it’s very doable to spice up the minimal wage with out killing jobs.

“The reason being political. It’s not economics,” Reich stated of the record-long time frame and not using a federal minimal wage improve. “It’s a part of the political polarization.”

Efforts by Democrats in Congress to spice up the minimal wage in recent times have repeatedly failed.

Requested whether or not Trump helps a federal minimal wage improve, the Trump marketing campaign shared an announcement from Republican Nationwide Committee spokesperson Anna Kelly blaming Harris for “decreasing actual wages and elevating costs through reckless spending.”

“Not solely will President Trump restore the booming financial local weather of his first time period, however he’ll get rid of taxes on ideas and additional time pay and stand as much as Communist China’s efforts to harm American employees,” Kelly stated. “Working households overwhelmingly help President Trump as a result of solely he’ll Make America Rich, Robust, and Nice Once more.”

Whereas the federal minimal wage has not budged since 2009, shopper costs have continued to extend — particularly over the previous three years.

Meaning the buying energy of the federal minimal wage has eroded considerably.

Reich, who has testified earlier than Congress on the minimal wage, stated there’s no query the federal minimal wage will not be a livable wage.

Researchers at MIT developed a calculator that estimates a dwelling wage — outlined as “what one full-time employee should earn on an hourly foundation to assist cowl the price of their household’s minimal primary wants the place they dwell whereas nonetheless being self-sufficient.”

Think about that even in Alabama, a lower-cost state that has not adopted a state minimal wage, MIT’s calculator estimates that the dwelling wage for one grownup with no youngsters is $20.15 an hour — or almost triple the federal minimal wage.

As a result of excessive price of kid care, that estimated dwelling wage spikes to $33.36 an hour for one grownup with one youngster in Alabama. In different phrases, a single mother with one youngster making the federal minimal wage of $7.25 is making lower than one-quarter of what’s required to get by in Alabama.

The federal minimal wage for tipped employees is simply $2.13 an hour. Nevertheless, these employees should make not less than the federal hourly minimal wage of $7.25 or their employers are required to cowl the distinction.

Though the federal minimal wage hasn’t budged, many state minimal wages have.

That’s why just one.1% of hourly employees earned the prevailing federal minimal wage or much less in 2023, down from 1.3% in 2022 and 13.4% in 1979, in accordance with the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In line with the Labor Division, 30 states at present have the next minimal wage than the $7.25 federal minimal. That features left-leaning states like California, the place the minimal wage is $16 an hour; and New York ($15); in addition to reliably Republican states like Florida ($12); Arkansas ($11) and West Virginia ($8.75).

That leaves 20 states that solely require $7.25 an hour, together with Texas and battleground states Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, the place Trump was talking on Sunday.

“McDonald’s employees don’t want photo-ops; they want dwelling wages,” Nina Turner, former state senator in Ohio and founding father of We Are Any individual, a worker-centered group that helps low-wage employees’ efforts to prepare, stated in a assertion Sunday. “All of us want to come back collectively and push again in opposition to a system that retains them in poverty whereas company executives make billions.”

McDonald’s says it raised wages by 8% for hourly employees at greater than 90% of its corporate-owned eating places in 2022. That’s on high of a pay hike of about 10% in 2021.

Nevertheless, the wage will increase solely utilized to the 5% of McDonald’s places which are corporate-owned. The remaining 95% are owned and operated by franchisees, who could make their very own selections on employee pay.

As of April 1, McDonald’s employees in California make not less than $20 an hour due to a new state regulation that boosted the minimal wage for all quick meals restaurant staff.

The California pay hike covers about half 1,000,000 quick meals employees within the state, making use of to restaurant chains with greater than 60 nationwide places. The regulation additionally created a quick meals council, comprised of representatives from eating places and employees, that may improve wages yearly for the remainder of the last decade.

Reich, the Berkeley professor, authored a current research that discovered that California’s minimal wage hike for quick meals employees brought on a “remarkably massive” improve in employee pay with out killing jobs or inflicting alarming value spikes.

Reich advised “Time TV” he thinks the federal minimal wage may improve to $17 an hour with out inflicting job loss.

“Folks would cease going to McDonald’s at $50 an hour. However I don’t see these adversarial results at $17,” he stated. “It might have a minimal impact on jobs, a small improve on costs and a variety of advantages.”