The Pandemic Proves the Value of Raising the Minimum Wage
States that have balked at requiring a higher wage lag in growth, personal income and, most important, retail business.
A winning cause for California.
Photographer: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images
Most Republicans in Congress perennially resist increasing the minimum wage, citing economists who say businesses would have to eliminate workers and raise prices. That would stoke inflation and undermine the economy, they say.
But if there was ever a period testing those assumptions and showing why raising the federal hourly wage gradually to $15 (as President Joe Biden proposes) would improve the well-being of just about everyone — capital and labor alike — it was the 2020 global pandemic, when national unemployment skittered to almost 15% in April.