Raise the Minimum Wage, Congress
The labor market can handle it, and the latest research shows its benefits outweigh its costs.
They’re onto something.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images North AmericaIncreasing the minimum wage is on my list of policy priorities for the new Congress. Why? Unlike more complex and ambitious pro-worker policies, such as co-determination, raising the minimum wage is a simple, common concept that can hopefully inspire the public.
There’s also a chance that minimum wage hikes will ignite a virtuous cycle of wage bargaining. Stagnant wages during the 2000s — at least partly as a result of Chinese competition — were followed by the Great Recession and the long, grinding recovery. During that period, workers had very little bargaining power, and so demanding raises was out of the question. The last time wages were going up this rapidly, in the late 1990s, a typical 35-year-old worker now wasn’t even employed: