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from the consumers-with-more-money-to-spend dept.
NPR (formerly National Public Radio) reports:
By a 44-5 vote, Chicago's City Council set a minimum-wage target of $13 an hour, to be reached by the middle of 2019. The move comes after Illinois passed a nonbinding advisory last month that calls for the state to raise its minimum pay level to $10 by the start of next year.
The current minimum wage in Chicago and the rest of Illinois is $8.25. Under the ordinance, the city's minimum wage will rise to $10 by next July and go up in increments each summer thereafter.
[...]The bill states that "rising inflation has outpaced the growth in the minimum wage, leaving the true value of lllinois' current minimum wage of $8.25 per hour 32 percent below the 1968 level of $10.71 per hour (in 2013 dollars)."
It also says nearly a third of Chicago's workers, or some 410,000 people, currently make $13 an hour or less.
[...][In the 2014] midterm elections, voters in Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota approved binding referendums that raise their states' wage floor above the federal minimum.
Media Matters for America notes that The Chicago Tribune's coverage tried to trot out the *job-killer* dead horse once again, to which the response was
According to a March 2014 report(PDF) prepared for the Seattle Income Inequality Advisory Committee titled "Local Minimum Wage laws: Impacts on Workers, Families, and Businesses", city-wide minimum wage increases in multiple locations--Albuquerque, NM; Santa Fe, NM; San Francisco, CA; and Washington, DC--produced "no discernible negative effects on employment" and no measurable job shift from metropolitan to suburban areas.
Related:
Seattle Approves $15 Minimum Wage
Mayor's Minimum Wage Veto Overridden by San Diego City Council
States That Raised Their Minimum Wages Are Experiencing Faster Job Growth
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 08 2014, @08:21PM
I got paid $4.25 an hour in 1995/1996 because that was minimum wage. It was a fast-foot job and the pay matched the skill level of the work. Comparatively, my other big expense at the time, gasoline, was right around $1.00 a gallon. Roughly 15 minutes of work paid for a gallon of gas. Today, minimum wage in my state is $8.15. Gasoline is roughly $3.00 a gallon. Relative to each other, you get a whole lot less on minimum wage these days.
I'm not saying to tie the minimum wage to gasoline, that's absurd. Also as a retail employee for 16 years and management for the last 10 of it, I am fully aware there are plenty of jobs that middle school drop-outs could do. Those jobs should earn no more than minimum wage to start out.
Working a minimum wage job should motivate people to do something to earn more, not think they can life forever at that pay, unless they've got some extremely low expectations of life. However, minimum wage doesn't have to be so absurdly low relative to the prices of everything else. Find a decent amount and then peg it to the rate of inflation or something similar, and review it every 4-5 years. People trying to suppress minimum wage are so far removed from knowing what that life is like, it's crazy. They're arguing from pure speculation and theory, while receiving 4+% annual raises plus their bonuses.
Up until a couple years ago, I strongly believed that if we just got rid of minimum wage and people just started calling out companies that pay nothing over social media, the backlash would keep companies in line. Now, I know there would be too many horrible companies, and there would be too much noise. We have had a minimum wage since 1938 and I dare say that the US benefited greatly from it. The scare-mongering needs to stop and people need to see that there are no job-losses or drops in employment after increases.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday December 08 2014, @08:36PM
unless they've got some extremely low expectations of life
That assumes anyone's expectations have anything to do with their local economy. Or their local economy is somehow bound to reflect their expectations. Or for that matter, the local economy has anything to do with their actual ability. Sure... go ahead, get that early childhood education degree... only half of you are getting teaching jobs, the other half get to waitress for minimum wage. Median student might not be some kind of hero, but they will be working for minimum wage as a waitress/bartender, at least in that sector. Get that petroleum engineer degree in 1985 in Texas, or Aerospace Engineering in the 70s, hope you like driving taxi.
"Oh well, turn them into Soylent Green" seems kinda harsh.
(Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Tuesday December 09 2014, @12:27AM
get that early childhood education degree.. only half of you are getting teaching jobs
I would think that would be a fairly safe and sensible degree to get, in a country where the general situation is that both parents need to work to support the family. **Somebody** has to raise the kids.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 09 2014, @01:16AM
Or for that matter, the local economy has anything to do with their actual ability. Sure... go ahead, get that early childhood education degree... only half of you are getting teaching jobs, the other half get to waitress for minimum wage.
Sadly, that is one degree that is very disconnected from ability.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 10 2014, @06:15PM
This assumes a practically infinite number of skilled jobs are available. Not everyone can be a theoretical physicist or software developer, and SOMEONE has to flip those burgers.
There are more college grads than ever working minimum wage jobs today. You expect me to believe that half a million people just spontaneously decided that they didn't feel like doing anything with their sixteen+ years of education?
Ideally we should be looking to reduce the labor supply by 10-20% so that the problem fixes itself through supply and demand. I think moving to a 4 day work week would be just about perfect. But either way we've gotta do SOMETHING to raise wages. Because why the hell am I paying the wage of some Walmart workers, when I haven't set foot inside a Walmart in nearly a decade? The way it is now, even if you go out of your way to only shop at businesses that pay a fair living wage, you're still paying thousands of dollars in welfare to corporations that won't. We're forced at gunpoint to pad their profit margins. Profits that they then spend to buy our politicians and take away more of our rights...