BlogWood: MT Archives

Hillsborough living wage flounders

In Tampa, a living wage is whatever the boss feels like paying you. So shut the fuck up and get back to work.

"It's back to what it's always been," said the Rev. W.L. Lee, who heads the Hillsborough Organization for Progress and Equality, or HOPE, which is promoting the ordinance. "The haves want the have-nots to keep on being have-nots."

The Living Wage Ordinance Task Force was 5-1 against recommending the proposal, with Lee casting the lone dissenting vote before walking out, followed by other members of his group. The other members of the task force include county employees and a representative of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce.

Opponents used the same tired old arguments that they always trot out whenever someone tries to give the working poor a break. The bottom line is that a living wage helps everyone in the community by stimulating the economy and putting money into the pockets of wage earners who will spend it. The idea, pushed by big business, that a higher wage will somehow cost jobs and therefore hurt the poor has been discredited over and over again. (The following is from a California study. The stray numbers are footnotes from the original. Similar studies from lots of different areas are an easy Google search away.)

Q: Does increasing the minimum wage cost jobs?

Mounting evidence indicates that moderate increases to the minimum wage result in little, if any, employment loss. Many economists now agree that modest wage increases do not lead to large job losses. Debate now centers on whether job losses exist or are merely very small.5

Minimum wage critics also argue that a higher minimum wage would force certain industries that are heavily dependent on low-wage workers _ particularly retail trade and services _ to cut back on jobs. However, retail trade employment has grown 15.2 percent from 1995 to 2001, while employment in the service industry has experienced even stronger employment growth (25.7 percent). Furthermore, despite the recent economic downturn in California, employment in the retail trade industry has continued to rise since January 2002. Employment in the service industry has declined slightly between January and August 2002, but has fared better than some high-wage industries.6

Q: Do minimum wage increases benefit the poor?

One way to measure if minimum wage increases are well-targeted is to arrange all California families by income into ten groups (deciles) and determine how many workers affected by minimum wage increases fall into each group. Since many of those in the lowest decile are
likely unemployed, one could expect a minimum wage increase to be well targeted if it principally affects families in the second, third, and fourth deciles. Analysis of Census data indicates that about half of those who benefited from minimum wage increases in the late 1990s were from families whose income fell into the second to fourth deciles. Over 10 percent of benefited workers were from families whose income was in the two highest income deciles.7

Q: What are other benefits of increasing the minimum wage?

Insofar as a higher minimum helps "make work pay," it may reduce usage of public assistance by poor families. A higher minimum wage increases earnings for those who both have a job and also rely on welfare or food stamps, and it also makes working more appealing for those who are not yet working. Both of these effects would reduce reliance on public assistance. While few studies have been conducted on this issue, it appears that minimum wage increases do reduce welfare caseloads, perhaps substantially.

The bottom line is that opponents of fair pay for hard work wish to keep enriching themselves on the backs of the poor and powerless.

AFL-CIO

Communications Workers of America

Industrial Workers of the World