This year Coloradans will be given the opportunity at the ballot box to choose whether to increase the state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020. Although drastically changing the minimum wage over-night would have devastating economic consequences, doing so over a period of years in an incremental manner would give businesses time to adjust to paying their workers living wages.
To fully understand our current wage predicament, it helps to look into our past. The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is only two-thirds the real value it was in 1968, and Colorado’s minimum wage, currently $8.31 an hour, is only three-fourths its historic value. Many laissez-faire and free-market capitalists assert that wages will increase naturally over time, but this has hardly been the case. The overwhelming majority of new wealth that has been created over the past few decades has gone to the enormously wealthy, leaving working class and poor American workers largely in the dust. If state and federal minimum wages had kept pace with inflation since 1968, the would now be $11.12 per hour.
One of the primary arguments against raising the minimum wage is the absurd theory that minimum wage jobs are designed solely for teenagers and students. Though this may be the case for many economically well-to-do Americans, those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder are often dependent on one or more minimum wage jobs to provide the basic necessities their families need to survive. And although conservatives and Republicans may not like to admit it, systemic inequality is the cause of many of the problems in lower-class communities and many have no other choice but to work two to three minimum wage jobs just to get by.
Every time the idea of raising the minimum wage is brought up, conservatives repeat old talking points ad-nauseum about how doing so will hurt business. One of the primary arguments against raising the minimum wage is that it will cause more low-wage workers out of the job. However, a study for the Center for Economic Policy and Research concluded that “Economists have conducted hundreds of studies of the employment impact of the minimum wage. Summarizing those studies is a daunting task, but two recent meta-studies analyzing the research conducted since the early 1990s concludes that the minimum wage has little or no discernible effect on the employment prospects of low-wage workers.”
Two more important points are almost never discussed in this discourse. Raising the minimum wage incrementally over a period of time would give workers more disposable income, which they in turn will use to stimulate the economy. The economy flourishes when consumers spend, rather than save. In addition to this positive economic benefit, raising the minimum wage would decrease minimum wage workers’ dependence on government assistance. Conservatives often rail against those on government assistance without first understanding why so many depend on the government for aid. Our state’s low wages undoubtedly contribute to that issue and raising the minimum wage would decrease the population of people on government assistance.
Finally, happy workers are more productive workers. Companies such as CostCo have shown what paying workers higher wages truly accomplished – a workforce of dedicated, passionate, and invested workers who value the work they perform rather than just the paycheck it gets them every two weeks.
It is time for Colorado to raise its minimum wage. Please consider joining Colorado Families for a Fair Wage to see how you can help raise Colorado’s Minimum Wage