Minimum wage hike necessary

We’ve noticed a trend lately. You probably have, too. When people talk about bringing jobs to Mat-Su they make a point — when applicable — to say that the positions will be “well paid,” pay a “living wage” or pay a “family wage.”

What the people pitching us the jobs that would come with coal mines, construction projects and port facilities mean by this is that the jobs they aim to add to the local economy will pay more than minimum wage. They will pay workers enough for 40 hours of labor to adequately stave off both starvation and homelessness.

“We’re not building a McDonald’s or a Walmart here,” is the underlying message. “These won’t be more service or retail jobs.”

Lots of fast food and retail jobs in the Valley pay minimum wage. In part, that’s why a third of our local workforce still commutes to Anchorage — for a livable wage. Sure housing is still cheaper here, but wages are lower, too. More living wage jobs would mean our low-wage neighbors have more money after paying for the basics — like food and rent — to buy consumer goods and save up for big ticket items like new appliances, cars and homes. And, it’s worth noting that every dollar spent in our community is spent and spent again five to seven times before that cash leaves town. While we’ve all watched the prices for gas, rent, goods and services climb sharply over the past seven years, we also know our paychecks have not kept pace. We agree with national economists who say increasing minimum wage is a sound strategy to bolster consumer spending.

Yes, it would mean businesses — like the Frontiersman — would spend more on labor. But at the same time, it also means our minimum wage employees would have more cash in their pockets to feed their families, pay rent and to spend on “luxury items,” such as an occasional meal out, or a trip to the movies. All that means more money turning over in the Mat-Su Valley. That’s why we support the initiative on the Nov. 4 ballot that would raise Alaska’s minimum wage to $8.75 per hour on Jan. 1, 2015, to $9.75 on Jan. 1, 2016, and thereafter adjust it for inflation.

This change matters for all Alaskans because consumer spending lies at the heart of the U.S. economy as a whole. Businesses need consumers to buy their goods and services. It’s the foundation of our whole economic system, the buying and selling of cars, toasters, televisions and tennis shoes.

That wages have stagnated in the U.S. as a whole means fewer dollars in the pockets of the majority of Americans, which in turn means more toasters languishing on the shelves and therefore less money circulating through the U.S. and Alaska economy.

It’s easy to argue only teenagers work minimum wage jobs. But a trip through any local fast food restaurant swiftly — or the Wasilla Walmart — rebuts that claim. Low-wage workers cut a swath across all age groups with poverty as the group’s common denominator.

There also is a back-end cost to taxpayers when workers at low pay jobs must rely on government assistance for food and rent.

We agree with the words Franklin Delano Roosevelt said upon signing the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933: “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”

We cannot expect to continue to pay labor less than a living wage while rewarding the heads of industry with pay more than 400 times their average workers’ wage. Oddly, there was no similar national conversation about whether the U.S. could afford to pay this CEO increase and what doing so would mean for all of us.

We need to change how the pie is divided so we can all afford food and shelter. And that starts with boosting the minimum wage as a means to boost consumer spending.