The United States Federal Minimum Wage is frozen in time
by
Dominic Alvieri
July 22nd, 2022
Twitter @AlvieriD
Why are we leaving everyone behind?
There is absolutely no excuse for the United States federal minimum wage to be frozen in time since 2009.
Year after year there is no change just like a broken clock. Even after this last slide stocks are still up quite nicely since 2009. Athlete and executive salaries, housing prices...and now inflation are soaring.
Arizona Cardinals star quarterback Kyler Murray just signed a 5 year $230 million dollar contract and once again the federal minimum wage has not changed since 2009.
The US Department of Labor documents the history of changes to the Minimum Wage Law. They have not been documenting much over the last decade plus.
What is going on?
What has the US Department of Labor been doing? In a word-NOTHING.
It is in corporate America's best interest to keep wages low.
Workers wanted more money but yadda, yadda, yadda the lobbyists took care of it.
Most jobs in one way or another are based off of the minimum wage. Any US State wishing to go above that rate may do so but it is against the law to go below that federal minimum level.
There are several different categories of jobs including skilled jobs, professional, hourly etc. This isn't a deep dive or a skewed data driven bs info blog. Just a blog about a physical real world problem.
Pre-pandemic the hospitality industry was one of the industries in the United States that made up a majority of the job growth over the previous 10 year period according to several archived analyst articles on CNBC.
During this time restauranteurs, franchisers, coffee houses and the like sprung up on nearly every corner during the expansion. Think Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, Subway etc. not to mention the casual Texas Roadhouse or TGIFs down the strip. Don't forget about Shake Shack.
sad but true...
Firms are still lobbying hard for the government not to raise wages for those who need it most.
In a nutshell corporate America pays lobbyists mostly congregated on a few block stretch of K Street in Washington DC not far from the Capitol. It is in their best interest to keep wages low. Year after year corporate and franchised locations continue to mushroom while the starting minimum wage remained the same.
Lobbying.
The major problem is corporate and entrepreneurial America got greedy and didn't raise many minimum basic rates during the expansion and then the pandemic hit. Now the inflationary decline is upon us and staffs are being cut are employers are now unable to raise rates. Although some states did raise minimum wages many did not. Wages overall did show gains but paled in comparison to the overall growth of the upper income brackets.
Without posting more mind numbing data suffice it to say the federal minimum needs to rise dramatically and rise today.
Otherwise we really are leaving everyone else behind.
Dominic Alvieri
