Let Justice Roll

Minimum-wage increase took 10 years, despite overwhelming public support

By Rick Wilson
Charleston Gazette, 6/17/07

After more than 10 years of neglect - the longest period since we had one - Congress finally increased the federal minimum wage. According to Homer, that's how long the Trojan War lasted.

The minimum wage will increase in three steps from $5.15 per hour to $5.85 on July 24 this year to $6.55 at the same time in 2008 and $7.25 in 2009.

The fact that it took this long is itself kind of odd. Numerous polls have shown consistent bipartisan support for an increase among Americans, with around 80 percent in favor.

So what will this mean for West Virginia and the nation? Probably more for the former than the latter. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2005 "Oklahoma and West Virginia had the highest proportion of hourly-paid workers earning at or below $5.15 (at about 4 percent)."

In West Virginia, that's about 20,000 workers, most of whom are not teenagers working at cool clothing stores in the mall. But around 59,000 West Virginians earn less than $7.25 and will see a boost when the increase is fully implemented.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, an estimated total of 133,000 workers will see some wage increase by 2009 due to the spillover effect as the wages of workers earning near the minimum are adjusted. As Tara Tuckwiller pointed out in the Gazette in January, that's more than one in four state hourly workers.

At the national level, around 13 million workers will see an increase. Of these 5.6 million earn under $7.25 now and an additional 7.4 million are likely to be indirectly affected.

When the increase is fully in effect, the annual income of a minimum wage worker at 40 hours per week will go from around $10,700 to just over $15,000. Representative George Miller, D-Calif., told the Associated Press that that was enough to pay for 15 months of groceries for a family of three.

One thing that made the effort to raise the minimum interesting this time around was the role of states - including West Virginia - in pushing for an increase. Each state victory gave support to other states and ultimately to the federal increase. By January 2006, the Christian Science Monitor reported that 18 states and the District of Columbia had raised their minimums.

The Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign, an umbrella group of faith, community and labor organizations that supported campaigns at the state and federal level, kicked off its push in the fall of 2005. West Virginians inaugurated their campaign at a press conference during a gathering of the West Virginia Council of Churches in October of that year, although the state AFL-CIO had been already working on it for some time.

By March 2006, the state legislature increased our minimum, even though definitions in state code left many workers out. Some people scoffed at that limited victory, but momentum is important. Shortly after our increase, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arkansas raised minimums through legislation.

In the Nov. 2006 elections, minimum wage increases were on the ballot in Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, Ohio and Colorado and all of them passed by an average margin of 65.5 percent.

For many Americans, this was a values vote. As the Rev. Paul Sherry of Let Justice Roll said at the time, "Minimum wage was the foremost values issue of the 2006 election, bringing people together across all lines. It is immoral that workers who care for children, the ill and the elderly struggle to care for their own families. A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it."

Kentucky and New Hampshire passed increases since the election (and I may be missing a few), which brings us to a grand total of 33 states and the District of Columbia.

Congress finally got the message, although the bill was tied up for months with wrangling over tax cuts and was then linked to the Iraq war bill, a move that distressed many supporters who wanted a clean vote.

It reminds me of the old saying of Bismarck's: "The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they'll sleep at night"

Still, I'll take what I can get these days. Lots of people in West Virginia and around the country worked hard on this and lots of hardworking people will benefit.