According to the National Employment Law Project, minimum wage workers in the United States would now be earning close to $11 an hour if the federal minimum wage had kept up with inflation over the past 40 years.
Today, however, the federal minimum wage stands at $7.25 an hour, where it has been since 2009.
A poll conducted in January by the Pew Research Center found strong support among the American people for an increase in the minimum wage. Support was greater among Democrats (53 percent) and Independents (71 percent), but more than half of Republicans surveyed (53 percent) also favored raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. CNNMoney’s American Dream Poll, conducted May 29–June 1, found similar numbers in favor of a wage hike.
The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 was the last congressional act to address the minimum wage. Passage of the act resulted in hikes in 2007, 2008 and 2009. Three Alabama Republicans still serving in the U.S. House of Representatives — Mike Rogers, R-Anniston; Robert Aderholt, R-Haleyville; and Spencer Bachus, R-Vestavia Hills; as well as Alabama’s two Republican senators, Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions — voted in favor of the bill. Congress has not voted on a minimum wage hike since 2007.
In Alabama, as at the national level, there is little political will to establish a state minimum wage.
Rosemary Elebash, Alabama State Director of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), testified during the state’s 2014 legislative session in opposition to establishing a minimum wage and raising the current wage.
Elebash, whose organization represents independently owned businesses including beauty shops, repair shops, attorneys and physicians, said an increase in the minimum wage creates a “domino effect” in a business.
“Any time you raise the minimum wage you have to raise the wage of every other employee in that business,” Elebash said.
Payroll, including wages, taxes and health care, is the largest expense for most business owners, she said. When businesses invest money to train a new employee, the hope is that the person will stay in the business and advance.
“Our business owners know their employees, know their families. If they hire someone at minimum wage and that person comes to work every day and is helping the business, they move up very quickly,” she said.
Still businesses are in business to make money. Elebash said studies by NFIB have shown that if the minimum wage goes up, business owners say they are not going to hire anymore.
“It’s a real job deterrent,” Elebash said.
Carol Gundlach of the Alabama Arise Citizens’ Policy Project (ACPP) said the issue is not just a business issue but a moral issue. Gundlach is a policy analyst on tax and budget issues for ACPP, a nonpartisan coalition that promotes public policy benefiting low-income Alabamians.
“Someone could work full time at minimum wage and still not be able to support their family,” Gundlach said. “It seems like we should reward work and people who are willing to support their families with at least adequate income so that they’re not in poverty when they are working full time.”
One of the arguments against a minimum wage increase is that low-wage workers can get government help in the form of energy assistance, housing subsidies, food assistance and health care, Gundlach said. Even though a high number of Alabamians who work full time do rely on safety-net programs, it is wrong to assume that only poor people are actually benefiting when businesses often benefit from such programs as well.
“Safety-net programs are critical, and we need to do everything we can to bolster the safety net,” Gundlach said. “But it seems unfair that large, prosperous corporations are paying upper management quite nicely and shifting the burden of caring for their low earners to the rest of us. They are cynically saying that we can depend on the taxpayers to help us make these profits.”
Still workers have to prove themselves, and businesses have to make money to keep their doors open, she said. “Everybody has to get their first start, and minimum wage is a starting point.”
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