The minimum wage was designed to be the entry point for young American workers. Take your first job at a low rate of pay, work hard and make your way up to a better job and better pay.
That seems an almost quaint notion in this strange new economy. It has been years since many of us have seen a pay raise. At the same time, we have been asked to take on more responsibilities even as the number of employees in many workplaces has shrunk. Holidays like Thanksgiving find us thankful simply to be employed.
Those who have lost their jobs have it tougher than ever, too. North Carolina has scaled back the number of weeks a laid-off worker can receive unemployment benefits. The current maximum of 14 weeks might be cut again in 2015.
Someone laid off from a good-paying manufacturing job faces an eye-opening experience. A minimum wage job isn’t necessarily an entry point any more. It’s a Band-Aid that might have to be stretched for weeks, months, even years.
Someone trying to support a family on $7.25 an hour will have one heck of a time.
Many of the people who oppose a minimum wage increase are the same people who oppose extended unemployment benefits. But how do they expect someone to support a family in such times?
It’s time to give workers a better shake. Raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, as President Barack Obama has proposed.
A minimum-wage job should still be an entry point for young American workers. But in today’s economy there are no guarantees.
