The least we can do

A state panel is recommending a hike in the minimum wage and an indexing scheme that would tie it to the cost of living index — a move designed to prevent the kind of neglect that allowed the minimum wage to fall so far behind inflation in the first place.

The state panel found the $7.15 per hour level is no longer adequate to maintain the same purchasing power as when it was implemented in October 2006.

“New Jersey’s minimum-wage workers are struggling to make ends meet,” said Labor Commissioner David J. Socolow, the chairman of the Minimum Wage Advisory Commission. “Without an immediate increase in the minimum wage and annual cost-of-living increases every year these workers fall even further behind.”

At $7.15 per hour, a minimum wage worker earns about $2,000 less than the federal poverty level of $17,160 per year; an $8.25 per hour wage would bring that worker even with the poverty level.

If it adopted automatic inflation increases to the minimum wage, New Jersey would be the 11th state to do so. Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington already have such a policy.

“Minimum-wage workers in New Jersey need a raise and a real opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty through their hard work,” Socolow said.

Even with the proposed increase, as the story points out, a minimum-wage worker would remain in poverty, which means that any increase in the cost of living that is not offset by an equivalent increase in the minimum wage is a step back deeper into poverty. And this does not take into account that many people — me included — believe that the poverty level has been set at an artificially low level.

So, the least we can do is index the wage so that workers aren’t falling behind (or quite so far behind).

The business community disagrees, saying the wage is an expense most small businesses cannot afford.

“Small businesses that rely on entry-level minimum-wage employment simply cannot afford this increase in a single step,” said Philip Kirschner, president of the
New Jersey Business & Industry Association. “As these businesses struggle to try to cope with other rising costs such as energy and transportation, they simply can’t afford a 55 percent increase in wages over three years.”

The Record has an answer to this:

The state should not price businesses out of New Jersey. But it cannot allow documented workers to be reduced to poverty. And rather than continue the minimum-wage debate year after year, tying the cost of inflation into a new minimum-wage law would remove the politics from what should be an issue of justice.

Many of us do no see our salaries rise at the rate of inflation. But most of us are not living below the poverty level. People who toil full time at low-wage jobs are not looking for government handouts. They are just trying to earn a living. Raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet