Raising the minimum wage doesn’t matter. I can hear the screams now. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter? Fifteen dollars an hour is way better than seven.” Sure it is, but the conversation needs to be about a living wage and frankly, fifteen dollars an hour is not a living wage.
Sure, having more money in your pocket is nice but at fifteen bucks an hour can you now replace your broken car with a new reliable one or get out of that cramped apartment? No! This is assuming you’re one of the people who actually makes fifteen dollars an hour.
I know people like to think that corporations are sitting on a ton of money and they can just pay an increase in wages without having to take any other action, but that’s not the way it works. Instead the business is either going to raise prices, cut costs, or both.
We’ve actually seen this situation before. In the late seventies and early eighties, the minimum wage increased every year from 1977, when it was $2.30, until 1981, when it was $3.35. People were happy to see their wages go up, but what else happened? Prices also went up. I was working in fast food at the time and I remember when January rolled around and the annual minimum wage increase went into effect. Another thing that went into effect was our annual price increase. I remember customers would come in and notice the price increases, but when we reminded them that the minimum wage had just gone up, they seemed ok with it. They didn’t bother to do the math to see that the percentage of our price increase was actually higher than the wage increase percentage.
Another thing changed over the years. Remember when you went to the counter at your local fast food restaurant and ordered your burger, fries, and soda? The people behind the counter would get all three items for you. At some point restaurants started giving you an empty cup and you served yourself soda. Well, serving soda used to entail a position or two per shift. Someone on the crew had the front drink station and during rush periods we might have had someone on the drive thru drink station. Those jobs are gone now.
What jobs might disappear now if the minimum wage goes up? One thing we’re seeing more and more of in grocery stores is Self-checkout registers. Might we see more of these? And what about fast food restaurants? Their registers have also changed a lot over the years. It used to be that the register operator typed in the prices and had to figure out your change. Now cashiers press pictures of burgers and fries, and a lot of people pay with credit cards. Do they still need a cashier to do that? Couldn’t you just as easily use an order kiosk and press the pictures? In fact, a number of restaurants have already started testing these systems in some of their stores.
So, is an increase in the minimum wage a good thing? Maybe, if you’re the person getting the raise and not the one being replaced by a machine. But let’s say you’re the one who gets to keep your job and get that pay raise. Are all your problems solved because you’re making a few dollars more per hour? Of course not. In fact, I would argue that very little has changed for you. You still need to find a way to earn more money; the kind of money that will allow you to afford the things that you need and want for you and your family.
No matter what wage you’re currently making, you have to do some things to get that raise or promotion. It’s entirely within your control. You can sit around waiting for politicians to get you that raise or you can take control of your own destiny. If you don’t know already, find out what your boss and your company values and rewards and start doing those things. Find out what it would take to get that promotion and start demonstrating those abilities. Do those things and I have no doubt that you can get yourself to a living wage a lot faster than by waiting for some politician to do it for you.
George A. Santino is a retired Microsoft executive and author of Get Back Up: From the Streets to Microsoft Suites. Connect with George on www.GeorgeASantino.com and on Twitter, @georgeasantino.
