In his January 5 column, National Review editor Rich Lowry, repeated a much-circulated myth that "[t]he effect" of a Democratic proposal to raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour “basically will be to give a small boost to the wage of teenagers working summers or after school.” As Media Matters for America noted, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a majority -- 71 percent -- of those who would be “directly affected” * by the Democratic minimum-wage proposal are age 20 or over.
In an October 25, 2006, briefing paper, EPI reported that an "[a]nalysis of the 2005 Current Population Survey reveals that the workers potentially affected by a minimum wage increase are mainly adults who typically work full time and provide significant income to their families."
Moreover, in his column, Lowry wrote that “29 states already have a minimum wage that's higher than the federal rate.” But Lowry did not note that, as of January 1, 2007, only eight states have a minimum wage at or above the level proposed by the Democratic majority, according to the Department of Labor.
In response to similar arguments made in a January 4 Washington Post column by George F. Will, EPI senior economist Jared Bernstein wrote, in a letter to the Post on January 8, that Will “implied that only those earning the current minimum of $5.15 per hour would benefit,” but that, "[i]n fact, the proposed new minimum wage would benefit any worker earning between $5.15 and $7.25."
From Bernstein's letter:
George F. Will [“The Right Minimum Wage,” op-ed, Jan 4] greatly underestimated the number of workers who would benefit from the higher minimum wage under consideration by Congress. He implied that only those earning the current minimum of $5.15 per hour would benefit: fewer than 500,000 workers. In fact, the proposed new minimum wage would benefit any worker earning between $5.15 and $7.25, the proposed new federal minimum.
Our research shows that 5.6 million low-wage workers have earnings that place them in the affected range and thus would directly benefit from the increase. These workers are mostly adults (70 percent are 20 or older; half are 26 or up). About 40 percent of them work full time, and a similar share work more than 20 hours per week.
While many are not officially poor, their incomes typically place them within the bottom two-fifths of the income scale (less than $36,000).
In other words, millions of American workers need and deserve this long-awaited raise.
From Lowry's column:
The Democratic substance is vanishingly thin. They will raise the minimum wage, but 29 states already have a minimum wage that's higher than the federal rate. The effect of the hike basically will be to give a small boost to the wage of teenagers working summers or after school. FDR would yawn.
* When EPI includes those who would be “indirectly affected,” which are defined as “workers currently earning above $7.25, likely to be affected by 'spillover effects,' ” the total percentage of adult workers affected is 79 percent.
