Hard times still
Published December 13, 2014
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, December 13, 2014.
Workers walking to demand a $15 an hour minimum wage in Greensboro last week will have a long march. A few big cities are setting their wage floor at that level, but it’s not realistic for North Carolina.
President Barack Obama’s proposal to gradually raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 is a better plan, although it’s unlikely to win the approval of a Republican Congress.
While the Greensboro demonstrators set a target that’s out of range, they have a point: The current minimum wage of $7.25 is too low. People can’t live on it, let alone support a family. It has to be supplemented by food stamps, Medicaid, free school lunches for their children and other public services. As part of their obligation as corporate citizens, their employers should be asked to pay a little more so the taxpayers can pay a little less.
Working people at the low end of the wage scale are having a tough time in America, and perhaps especially in North Carolina. Not only is the state’s minimum wage identical to the $7.25 federal level, unemployment and under-employment remain relatively high, and jobless benefits are stingy.
Last year, North Carolina reduced the maximum weekly unemployment payment and duration of benefits. The current maximum of 14 weeks may be cut again next year. With other eligibility changes, North Carolina has seen a rapid increase in the number of unemployed people who are getting no benefits. This creates a population of desperately poor people.
Gov. Pat McCrory boasts of paying off the state’s debt for unemployment insurance owed to the federal government ahead of schedule. Part of the success is due to increasing employment, which is very welcome. Part has come from simply dropping unemployed North Carolinians from the benefit rolls. In October, nearly 300,000 people were counted as unemployed in North Carolina. But the fact that the labor force declined from a year earlier suggests that many more were actually out of work but weren’t being counted.
Wage growth also has been a concern during the slow national recovery from the 2007-08 recession. New jobs often pay less than the ones workers lost years ago. In North Carolina, one in three workers earns less than the federal poverty rate for a family of four — defined as $23,834 a year — compared to 24 percent of workers in 2002, Census numbers indicate. Providing food, housing, utilities and other necessities takes every penny, leaving little for savings and extras. Low pay, or no income for many still out of work, restricts overall economic activity.
There are no easy answers. Certainly, raising everyone’s pay to $15 an hour would require a magician’s wand to expand the available money supply. But $7.25 isn’t acceptable.
Beyond that, creating new jobs and improving education and job training are the best long-term bets. It’s a long march, but government should try to smooth the way rather than put up obstacles.
