stogiefan wrote:Who is staying on minimum wage for more than a short time? I could see the need to be concerned with cost of living adjustments if at least 25% of the working population earned minimum wage for a sustained amount of time. That is simply not the case. Minimum wage workers make up around 2% of the entire workforce. Almost 1/2 of those are between the ages of 16-19. They don't need that job to make a living. The job is for nothing more than building work skills and having some pocket money for gas and other recreational activities. Other people earning minimum wage are retired people working less than 20 hours a week to remain active and have a little supplemental income. The number of people that rely on a minimum wage job as a primary source of income to support themselves and/or family is relatively small. I don't mean to sound crass but with all of the employment agencies, occupational training/certification centers, financial aid for community college/technical school there is really no excuse for someone who is able bodied and able minded to be stuck earning minimum wage.
Some interesting data on that:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/19/who-makes-minimum-wage/
It only represents 2.8% of the entire workforce... and really, we're only talking about raising minimum wage for 1.4% of the workforce, as the other chunk is exempt (waitstaff/bartenders/disabled/student)....
Of that 2.8% of the workforce
So 24% of them are under 19.
50% of them are under 24... If someone under 24 HAS To support a family of 4, they have already made more than one bad decisions in their life.
64% Aren't working 40hrs a week (either by their choice or the employers).
Interesting statistic, most of them appear to be white people living in the south.
So... what's the hit? 1.566MM workers going from 7.25/hr to 10/hr. Lets assume, since 36% are working 40hrs a week, and the other 54% are earning a range of 10-35 hrs a week.... I'll average that to about 26.55 hours per week per person...
Total annual gift from employers to the workers.... (drumroll please)..... $114,337,575
But don't forget, uncle sam wants his piece too... 16,630,920 in additional taxes gifted to uncle sam, just for the increase...