So, it’s kind of depressing that anyone who makes minimum wage and has to support additional people is living in poverty, or way below poverty if they’re in a high cost of living area. Seriously, look it up, unless you’re single without dependents, minimum wage pay is below the poverty line for the entire freaking country.

Some people are concerned that raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 will hurt businesses (it certainly will make payroll hurt more for a while) and result in job loss (maybe, maybe not, it’s basically speculation at this point).

Maybe the solution is to have this conversation every two years instead of once a decade. There should be incremental raises of the minimum wage that correspond with the overall rate of inflation and growth of the economy. After all if congress deserves multiple raises within a decade, surely the people who are supposed to pay the taxes that support Congressional raises should make more money so they can pay more taxes…. Okay, so that line of reasoning got away from me and came out pro-government instead of pro-individual, but the point remains minimum wage needs to be evaluated frequently.

So, three years after the last increase in minimum wage it could have been increased to $8.50, and then three years after that to $9.75, and then this year to $11.00 without creating an economic “shock and awe” that rattles businesses, and leads to more people being able to buy the stuff that businesses sell on their own dime rather than the taxpayers. So many benefits from having frequent minimum wage conversations instead of waiting until it reaches damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t crisis levels.

But Alecto, didn’t you hear that the economy was bad? Yeah, I did. I lived through it too. And it’s still sluggish, but sacrificing the low income earners is what keeps it sluggish and increases the strain on various safety-net programs. People who don’t make enough money to invest spend all their money on rent and consumer goods. If they have more to spend, money keeps circulating in the economy so businesses stay in business.

So congress, pass a law that requires you to increase the minimum wage every time you increase your own salaries….