Our View

With the Democrats in control of the House of Representatives in St. Paul, we’re sure to be discussing a state-wide minimum wage increase, probably to $15 an hour, phased in over a few years.

$15 an hour is not a lot of money. But it’s a mandate that should not be implemented statewide.

Most arguments for such an increase center around the fact that a person working full-time at the current minimum wage, can’t afford basic housing, groceries and transportation on their own.

But such an argument ignores the fact that most minimum wage earners don’t rely on their wages to pay all their housing, grocery and transportation needs. Many minimum-wage earners are working part-time as a way to supplement their family income — or as first-time wage-earners — while concentrating on other occupations, like students, artists, homemakers and the like. For those workers, the current minimum wage is sufficient, and reasonable.

And for those who do rely on their minimum wage job for their entire income, Minnesota has a very nice and generous system of subsidies to help. We have food stamps and Medical Assistance; daycare assistance for working parents; housing programs of all kinds, and public transportation. (In the bigger cities we support bus and rail systems; here in Carlton County we have Arrowhead Transit which, admittedly, could be improved to provide more reliable transportation to struggling workers, but is still a terrific program.)

A better long-term policy would be to strengthen such social services, making it easier and more efficient for those who can work full-time to support themselves with dignity. Such an expansion of social services will help even those less needy: for example, we now offer all-day kindergarten, which is open to all families, not just those who earn low wages. And by expanding public transportation, we’d hope to see increased participation by all community members, which will eventually reduce the need for our constantly expanding (and very expensive) public roadway system.

But raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour statewide is not the solution.

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