The minimum wage needs to be raised to be a true living wage. Many people are talking about $15 an hour, but to keep pace with inflation, I think $22 or $25 per hour really should be the minimum.
Some say we can’t raise the minimum wage because that will make prices go up at businesses employing minimum-wage workers. The fact is those workers deserve more. We called them essential workers when pandemic lockdowns started, yet we still force them to live in poverty by not paying them.
Most businesses can pay more and absorb the difference in slightly lower profits. Businesses with bad business models will have trouble, but should they really exist anyway, if their bad business choices are being propped up by their low-wage workers?
Higher minimum wages benefit everyone. I urge Sen. Cantwell, Rep. Herrera Beutler and Sen. Murray to support raising the federal minimum wage and then pegging annual increases to inflation so we don’t fall back to where we are now in a few years.
