To clarify, the study speaks of “real” minimum wage, which accounts for inflation.
When accounting for inflation, the article points out that:
minimum wage was—measured in 2007 dollars—$9.15 in 1968 and dropped to around $5.80 in 2007
Big business and right-wingers fight the minimum wage, despite the fact that increasing the minimum wage would help resolve many of society’s problems*.
And here’s Weird Al, with “Fat” – a parody of MJ’s Bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqz1ojIQTBk
*Explanation attempt:
I’ve often read that an increasing income gap often leads to increasing crime, assuming the low end of the spectrum struggles.
The income gap had been growing for most of the last decade, and there are places where minimum wage or even double minimum wage won’t let you afford to live. I fail to see the obvious upward mobility some people speak of, in reference to the american dream. Some people point at the president – I imagine he’s very much an exception.
People who assume that minimum wage jobs are only held by teenagers are wrong.
There are people in this country working hard to live in poverty.
And some of us don’t care, “we got ours cuz we earned it”, without realizing our own good fortune.
You raise the minimum wage by a buck.
What happens?
The poorest of us that were already living paycheck to paycheck will likely continue to do so, pumping most of that increase back into the economy.
And again I’d like to emphasize what that article said.
“minimum wage was—measured in 2007 dollars—$9.15 in 1968 and dropped to around $5.80 in 2007”
Currently, we’re almost back to where we were in 1980 in terms of real minimum wage.
What if the minimum wage allowed you to make enough for mortgage payments?
Of course, there’s the minority group who decries the “liberal elite”, but seemingly don’t want to share the american dream with everyone.
The chart below comes from:
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth484/minwage.html
And shows that at one point, in the early 60’s, a full time minimum wage job nearly reached the poverty level.
That would be wonderful, if that ever happened – full time working assuring a certain level of comfort.
Another thing that lessoning the extreme gap between the rich and the poor does, is create more customers for many local businesses.
This is assuming that you’d eat out more often, play pool, bowling, movies, etc. with a more impressive salary.
More customers means a happy business.