One of the challenges in discussing the minimum wage is in understanding what a minimum wage job is. Most people think of minimum wage jobs as fast food restaurant workers, and use the dismissive term "burger flipper" to describe the people who occupy those jobs. The people in minimum wage jobs are often also characterized as high school students in their first job, and the jobs characterized as part-time.
So, the first thing needed to have an open minded conversation on this topic, is to change how we talk about things. Let's start by acknowledging that the scope of minimum wage jobs in America is vast. Based on a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report for 2014, they list nine broad categories of employment. They are:
- Management, business and financial operations occupations
- Professional and related occupations
- Healthcare support occupations
- Protective service occupations
- Food preparation and serving related occupations
- Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations
- Personal care and service occupations
- Sales and related occupations
- Office and administrative support occupations
- Farming, fishing and forestry occupations
- Construction and extraction occupations
- Installation, maintenance and repair occupations
- Production occupations
- Transportation and material moving occupations
The service occupations have by far the largest concentration of those making at or below minimum wage, with 65.4% of those in service jobs making at or below minimum wage. But less than half of those in the service occupations are in food preparation and serving related occupations. So, please no more "burger flipper" characterizations.
Of the total number of hourly employees, the BLS report for 2014 shows that 51.8% of those working at or below minimum wage are 25 years and older, and only 21.4% of those working at or below minimum wage are 16 to 19 years old. So, please, no more "high school kids".
And finally, of the total number of hourly employees paid at or below the minimum wage, 69.5% work 35 hours a week or more, with 61.8% of those working 40 hours or more. So not "part-time" jobs either.
While we're changing the way we talk about things, I like to suggest that we stop talking in dollars and cents, and instead talk about buying power.
What does the work you do allow you to enjoy? My personal belief is that anyone working 40 hours per week should be able to afford a roof over their head, food in their stomach, clothes on their back and shoes on their feet.
I think if two people in a household are working, those people should be able to afford phone and internet service and transportation (other than walking).
In my perfect world, any couple where both people work full-time would have a home that they owned if they wanted home ownership, a car, food, internet, phone, savings, and a vacation every 3 to 5 years.
I also believe all work has value and dignity, and I think that the housekeepers in the hotel where I stay, and the dishwashers in the restaurant where I eat, and the cashier at the grocery store where I shop all deserve to buy a good life with their labor.
The dollars and cents that it takes to buy that life vary by geography and by micro-geography. So, talking about the dollars and cents is impractical.
What is important to me is, do you believe all hard working people deserve a decent standard of living? Because if we start to change how we talk about things from abstract things like minimum wage, to concrete things like what is a decent standard of living and do we want a world where everyone can enjoy that standard, then maybe we can find common ground.
We will at least have to be honest enough in our conversation to say that we believe some people don't deserve a decent standard of living if that is what we believe.
It is much easier to be inhumane when talking in the abstract. I think if we start to change how we talk about things, it will make it much more difficult to be inhumane.
And then maybe we can start to work together to common sense solutions instead of arguing about theories.
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