The bill to help American workers that President Biden has proposed includes a provision that would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour through steps. This is badly needed. The amount of goods/services that a minimum wage worker can buy has been radically reduced since it was last raised. In fact, the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a poverty wage for a single person (and an abomination for families and single parents). Sadly, most states continue to adhere to this federal poverty wage.
But the GOP senators (and one Democrat - Joe Manchin) oppose raising the minimum wage, and President Biden is starting to believe the minimum wage provision will be cut out of the bill before it is passed. This would be a serious mistake.
While businesses and the rich are enjoying more profits than ever, and paying less taxes on those profits (thanks to a massive GOP tax cut in 2017), most Americans struggle to stay ahead of inflation -- and minimum wage workers must rely on government and charity just to eat and shelter themselves. The vast majority of Americans decry the growing gap between the rich and the rest of America -- which is now as large as before the Great Depression (and growing larger every month). The best way to start to correct that ridiculous gap would be to raise the minimum wage to a livable wage (about $15 an hour).
The main argument the GOP uses to oppose the minimum wage being raised is to claim they are protecting American workers. They say that if the minimum wage is raised to a livable wage, then businesses will have to lay off workers -- the very workers the minimum wage raise is trying to help. That argument is not just specious -- it's an outright lie!
Study after study has shown that raising the minimum wage doesn't cost jobs. In fact, it may create jobs, because businesses will flourish as those minimum wage workers have more money to spend (and they will spend it because they have to to keep going).
But , that's not the only reason that jobs won't be lost. They won't be lost because it doesn't make business sense to lay off workers that are needed.
A good business person hires only the number of workers he/she needs to properly make or deliver their goods/services. If they hire too many, then they are unnecessarily cutting into their on profits. If they hire too few, they will not be able to keep their customers happy -- and those customers will go to another business where they can be served adequately. Laying off workers because the minimum wage is raised just means that business will not be able to meet customer demands, and it will hurt the business.
The real reason they oppose raising the minimum wage is because businesses don't want to pay more in wages. Some businesses thrive by paying less than a livable wage (which is nothing less than the theft of a worker's labor -- the only thing they have to sell). Bigger businesses that already pay more than the minimum wage know that raising the minimum wage will put an upward pressure on the wages they pay. Workers will want more as their own wage is near the minimum wage.
It's not that these businesses could not afford to pay more. They just don't want to because it would cut into their already obscene profits. They like putting money into their own bank accounts that should be going to workers.
Our economy is very unfair. It has been tilted to favor the rich to the detriment of everyone else for several decades now. This must change. And the fist change that should be made is to raise the minimum wage to a livable wage. Common decency and economic justice demand it!
