By Andrew S. Ross
San Francisco Chronicle, March 5, 2013
On the same day the stock market reached new heights, thanks in part to record corporate profits, there was a renewed attempt to raise the federal minimum wage, which has stayed the same for the past four years. Coincidence?
"Look, it's become clear that corporations paying the minimum wage can now afford to pay more. It's not more complicated than that," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, who introduced the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013 on Tuesday.
Miller's bill, co-written by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, would raise the federal minimum wage, in stages, from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour, and link increases beyond that to the cost of living. ...
This time, Miller had the CEO of the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce [more than 500,000 members], plus a Washington-area restaurant owner and a pizza delivery guy by his side, when he announced the bill. Not represented, but a notable corporate supporter, was Costco, none of whose employees makes less than $11.50 an hour.
"Instead of minimizing wages, we know it's a lot more profitable in the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximize employee productivity, commitment and loyalty," says Costco CEO Craig Jelinek. ...
Overt opponents include the 350,000-member National Federation of Independent Business, which regards the minimum wage as "more like maximum insanity."
Other trade associations repeat the much-disputed job killer mantra. Still, they're somewhat more tempered than the National Association of Manufacturers, which called Franklin Roosevelt's establishment of a minimum hourly wage (25 cents) in the 1930s "a step in the direction of communism, bolshevism, fascism, and Nazism."
Back on planet Earth, the Economic Policy Institute notes that, adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage is lower now than in 1967. The institute calculates that the incremental increases over three years, as called for in Miller's bill, would benefit 30 million workers, the majority of them women and non-Hispanic whites.
That includes low-paid workers in California, where the minimum wage is $8 an hour, pretty stingy for a high-cost, supposedly liberal state, compared with, say, Oregon ($8.95) and Washington ($9.19).
Nineteen states plus the District of Columbia pay more than the $7.25 federal minimum wage, including Republican-controlled states Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Arizona and Montana.
Next week, San Jose's minimum wage rises from $8 to $10 an hour. Job killers all? Business in San Francisco doesn't appear to be suffering from the fact the city has the highest minimum wage - $10.55 - in the nation.
According to a poll from USA Today/Pew Research Center, 71 percent of Americans support an increase in the federal minimum wage - 68 percent of independents and 50 percent of Republicans.
Perhaps they hold with Miller, who said, "You can't continue to build an economy on the backs of low-paid workers."
Andrew S. Ross is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: bottomline@sfchronicle.com
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