Pay the People

We live in the richest country in the history of the world, but you’d never know it judging by the state of wages in America.

The federal minimum wage was last raised in 2009 to $7.25 an hour, which comes out to $15,080 a year for a full-time worker. In America today, there is not a single county or city where that wage is sufficient to afford even a basic standard of living for one person. To make matters worse, other low-wage workers that make above the federal minimum don’t fare much better. About 40% of working Americans – that is, 67 million people – make less than the median cost of living for a single adult with no children.

The issue is even worse when you contrast workers’ pay with what their employers make. It’s common for CEOs at America’s largest companies to receive pay packages worth hundreds, sometimes thousands, of times more than what their average employees earn. Workers have become more productive over the last few decades, but the fruits of their labor have trickled nowhere but up, right into their bosses’ pockets.

We want wages to be raised to meet the cost of living out of a basic sense of morality. To us, it is a matter of principle that anyone in any job who works 40 hours a week should be paid enough money to afford basic essentials. We don’t believe this is radical or complicated in the slightest.

But there’s another, more selfish reason why we want workers to be paid fairly: it’s good for business. Research has found that workers who are paid well are more focused, motivated, and productive, which in turn leads to less employee turnover and higher profits. Paying higher wages may hurt balance sheets in the short term, but in the end, it is a smart investment that pays for itself.

The other reason why paying workers well is good for business has to do with the fact that the economy is primarily driven by consumer demand. It’s easy to forget that workers aren’t just employees: they’re consumers as well. At the end of the day, wealthy business owners like many of us need workers/consumers to be paid well enough so they can actually afford to buy our products and services.

The Patriotic Millionaires have worked with allies in Congress to create a perfect solution: the American Stability Act. If enacted, it would result in the largest increase in wages and the most significant cut in taxes for the working class in American history. It would ensure that every working person, including those currently exempt from wage laws like tipped and disabled workers, can make a living wage, and it would guarantee working people don’t pay a dime in income tax on wages up to the median cost of living (and make billionaires make up the difference).

But Congress can still do more. It should protect and strengthen the right to organize labor unions, which give workers a strong, collective voice to advocate for better pay, benefits, and working conditions. It should fully enforce the law against employers who fail to meet basic working standards or commit wage theft. And last but not least, it should do something to rein in obscene and out-of-control CEO pay.

We all learned during the COVID pandemic who the essential workers in America really are. They are the everyday working people stocking grocery shelves, taking care of the sick and elderly, and teaching children how to read and write. We can go a little while without millionaires like us analyzing the stock market all day, but we can’t go a single day without them.

Pay the people!