Katherine Clark on Jobs

Raise the minimum wage; it has fallen since the 1980s

When Katherine was a waitress in 1985, the hourly wage was $2.00, but in 1999 the tipped minimum wage was frozen at $2.63 an hour, and it hasn't been changed since!

And because women are disproportionately concentrated in low-wage jobs, the minimum wage affects women and their children even more. It's time to raise the minimum wage.

Raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour by 2016.

Congressional summary: Increases the federal minimum wage for employees to:

1. $8.20 an hour beginning 6 months after enactment
2. $9.15 an hour beginning 1 year later,
3. $10.10 an hour beginning 2 years later, and
4. an amount determined by increases in the Consumer Price Index, beginning annually after 3 years.

• Increases the federal minimum wage for tipped employees to $3.00 an hour beginning 6 months after enactment, with annual CPI adjustments.

Proponent's argument in favor (RaiseTheMinimumWage.com): The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour remains decades out of date, and the federal minimum wage for tipped workers--$2.13 per hour--has not increased in over 20 years. The minimum wage of the past provided significantly more buying power than it does today. The minimum wage of $1.60 an hour in 1968 would be $10.56 today when adjusted for inflation.

Opponent's argument against: (Neil King in Wall Street Journal, Feb. 24, 2014): The CBO concluded that a jump in the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour could eliminate 500,000 jobs. For Republicans, the report provided ammunition that a higher minimum wage would kill jobs. Democrats pointed to the CBO's findings that the higher wage would lift 900,000 people out of poverty. But both sides missed a key finding: That a smaller hike from the current $7.25 to $9.00 an hour would cause almost no pain, and still lift 300,000 people out of poverty while raising the incomes of 7.6 million people.Congressional Budget Office report:: Once fully implemented, the $10.10 option would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers, or 0.3%. Some people earning slightly more than $10.10 would also have higher earnings, due to the heightened demand for goods and services. The increased earnings for low-wage workers would total $31 billion. Accounting for all increases and decreases, overall real income would rise by $2 billion.