Forget $15 an Hour — the Minimum Wage Should Be $24 – By Jon Schwarz (The Intercept) / Mar 4 2021
The minimum wage once went up hand in hand with the productivity of the U.S. economy. It should again.
THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC relief bill passed by the House of Representatives this week would raise the federal minimum wage in steps until it reached $15 an hour in 2025. But an increase in the minimum wage has been removed from the Senate’s legislation. At least for now, it is stuck at $7.25.
This is bad enough in itself, but even worse is that almost no Americans understand how low we’ve allowed our aspirations to become. Our country’s productivity gains in recent decades should have translated into a minimum wage today of $24 an hour — and by 2025, it should be almost $30.
This may sound preposterous. But in fact, U.S. society was once on a path to this destination. We simply chose to step off that path.
From both a moral and practical perspective, the minimum wage should go up in step with the productivity of the U.S. economy — that is, our ever-increasing ability to create more wealth with the same amount of work. Morally, as a country grows richer, everyone should share in the increased wealth. Practically, companies that sell things need lots of people with the money to buy them.
CONTINUE > https://theintercept.com/2021/03/05/minimum-wage-raise-15/
