Let the facts speak for themselves….
Facts about the Federal minimum wage
- Between 1997 and 2007 the federal minimum wage was stuck at $5.15 an hour; in that time, it lost 20% of its purchasing power
- In January 2007, both houses of Congress passed bills to raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour; these two bills were reconciled and then passed on May 24; the final bill includes $4.84 billion in tax breaks for small businesses.
- The bill will raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour from $5.15 in three steps over two years.
- In 2008, the federal poverty line for a family of three is $17,600
- A worker who earns $5.85 an hour 40 hours per week, 52 weeks of the year, earns $12,168 per year – which is $5,432 below the federal poverty line for a family of three; for a worker earning the new minimum wage (when it reaches $7.25 in 2009), that figure rises to $15,080 per year – still below the poverty line
- In 1950, the federal minimum was 56% as high as the average worker’s wage; now, the minimum is just 31% as high as the average worker’s wage
- The minimum wage peaked in 1968; adjusting for inflation, that would amount to $9.53 an hour in today’s dollars
- The main groups of workers who will benefit from the federal minimum wage hike fall into the following occupational categories: food preparation and serving related occupations (31%), sales and related occupations (19%), and four areas which each represent between 4–8% of the total: transportation and material moving, personal care and service, healthcare support, and production (mainly manufacturing)
- With the new federal minimum wage going into effect, 240,000 Kansas workers are getting a raise; but at least 17,000 workers, who are covered by the Kansas rather than the federal minimum wage, did not get a raise
Facts about the Kansas minimum wage
- The Kansas minimum wage is just $2.65 an hour
- Kansas has the lowest minimum wage in the U.S.; five states in the deep south have no minimum wage rate at all
- A worker who earns $2.65 an hour 40 hours a week, 52 weeks per year, earns just $5,512 per year – which is $11,658 below the 2007 federal poverty line for a single parent with two children
- That figure – $5,512 per year – is less than a third of the federal poverty line for a family of three
- Kansas hasn’t raised its minimum wage rate since 1988 - that’s 20 years!
- The Kansas Department of Labor says that 27,000 Kansas workers now earn less than the federal minimum wage — that is, under $5.85 an hour
- In February 2007, the Kansas legislature rejected a bill to raise the state minimum wage above $2.65 an hour. In 2008, it rejected three more attempts to raise the wage.
Which categories of workers are not covered by the federal minimum wage and are instead covered by the Kansas minimum? - Workers whose employers gross under $500,000 annually and don’t produce for interstate commerce
- Childcare workers
- Companions for the elderly and infirm
- Farm workers whose employers use under 500 person-days of farm labor per year
- People who work for certain small newspapers or work for certain amusement and recreational firms
Poverty in Kansas is a big problem
- 300,000 Kansans are currently living in poverty; this number includes 55,000 households and an additional 90,000 unrelated individuals
- If the federal and state minimum wages were both raised, over 20% of the Kansas workforce would benefit – and that’s no small number
- The federal poverty measurement is increasingly outdated and unrealistic, based on a model developed in 1955 that estimated food costs within a household budget; not only are food expenditures different now, but the model is based on a nutritionally inadequate USDA food plan; in the meantime, basic needs like housing and health care costs have increased dramatically; the poverty measure also ignores changes in family needs such as greater child care and transportation expenses due to women’s increased labor force participation
Facts about state and city minimum wages
- Statewide campaigns to raise the minimum wage are common. In all, 30 states have already raised their statewide minimum wages above the old $5.15 level; that total includes six states which passed statewide initiatives to raise their minimum wages at the ballot box last November; those states include our immediate neighbors to the east and west, Missouri and Colorado.
- City “living wage” ordinances have also become common: between 1994-2005, 140 cities throughout the U.S. passed “living wage” ordinances. Lawrence, Kansas passed such an ordinance in 2003, which requires businesses receiving tax abatements to pay their employees a living wage, defined as a wage high enough to keep a family of three 30% above the federal poverty line (currently $10.38/hour).
- Citywide minimum wage laws are the most recent trend. Broader than the earlier living wage ordinances, these new laws require all employers in a community to pay a higher minimum wage. Since 1993, nine cities across the U.S. have enacted citywide minimum wage laws, including Washington D.C., San Francisco, Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Initial research on the effect of the Santa Fe law showed that employment increased slightly, among other benefits. Albuquerque soon followed suit, raising its own minimum wage. In San Francisco, pay increased significantly at affected restaurants without employment loss. Research is ongoing in these cities. (It must be noted that five of the nine city ordinances were later blocked by their legislatures and/or courts – four in Wisconsin, whose legislature banned citywide wage laws in exchange for raising the state minimum wage)
Why else should we raise the wage?
. . . Because many economists and business leaders agree that raising the minimum wage is an economic imperative for the enduring strength of our workforce, businesses, communities and economy as a whole:
- Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, a group of businesses people who support a higher minimum wage. There are nearly 800 signers at present (www.businessforafairminimumwage.org/signatories)
- Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that seeks to broaden the public debate about strategies to achieve a prosperous and fair economy. (www.epi.org)
- Over 500 economists, including several Nobel Prize winners, who signed the statement, “It’s Time for a Raise.” (www.epinet.org/stmt/economistsminwage200410web.pdf)
- Partnership for New York City, a powerful nonprofit group of CEOs founded by David Rockefeller. The Partnership recently broke with tradition of many business-advocacy groups and came out supporting an increase of New York’s minimum wage. (www.pfnyc.org)
. . . Because numerous polls show that there is widespread public support for raising the minimum wage:
- A January 2006 poll from the Pew Research Center found that 81 percent of respondents thought that increasing the minimum wage was an important priority. Nearly half (47 percent) said it was a top priority.
- A November 2005 Gallup Poll found that 83 percent of respondents supported legislation to increase the federal minimum wage.
- A Pew Research Center poll released in January 2005 found that 82 percent of respondents thought that increasing the minimum wage was an important priority.
- A January 2002 poll by Lake Snell Perry & Associates for the Ms. Foundation found that 77 percent of likely voters surveyed support raising the minimum wage from $5.15 to $8 per hour. Some 79 percent of likely voters supported regular increases in the minimum wage to address the effect of inflation on the real value of the minimum wage.
- A November 2001 survey conducted by Techno Metrica Institute of Policy and Politics for Investor’s Business Daily and The Christian Science Monitor found that 75 percent of the survey respondents supported raising the minimum wage as a way to stimulate the economy.
- An October 2001 survey by the Gallup Organization for CNN and USA Today found that 81 percent of the respondents supported an increase in the minimum wage.
- A survey conducted in January and February 2001 by National Public Radio, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government found that 85 percent of Americans support raising the minimum wage.
So why raise the wage?
. . . BECAUSE IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO!
