Raising the Minimum Wage, and Other Overdue Reforms

 

These two posts by James Fallows, especially the second one, got me thinking about this again - not that I ever go all that long in between.  But he raised one new issue in particular, one that I'd been sort of aware of, to full consciousness.  I'll get to that.

First of all, I'm more than ready to jump on the bandwagon, such as it is, that the minimum wage ought to be raised to $10/hour in a series of steps over the next few years - and then indexed to inflation, so we don't have to keep on doing this every several years.  The most straightforward way to help working people who are struggling to get by is to pay them more. 

This would not only help workers earning between $7.15 (the current minimum) and $10 per hour, but those who are currently earning $10-$12 per hour (and as a result are currently getting a $3-$5 premium over minimum wage) would get a bit more too: you can't get someone to hold down a job that requires skills or experience if you're not going to pay them noticeably more than they can earn at MickeyD's.

And while I'm at it, let me return to some familiar hobbyhorses:

1) The law should mandate 10 paid days of vacation and 5 paid days of sick leave per year for full-time workers, to be accrued at least quarterly.  (That would be 20 hours of vacation and 10 hours of sick leave per quarter.) 

What's more, if someone's working part time, then the paid leave they earn would be pro-rated according to the number of hours they averaged over the most recent quarter: someone averaging 28 hours a week would get 28/40 times the number of hours in the parenthetical.  With many Americans working part time not by choice, it's important that benefits for part-timers be pro-rated where feasible, and not just disappear.

2) Below some annual salary (say, $50,000/year) or its hourly equivalent, everyone, regardless of supervisory or professional status, should get time and a half over 40 hours and double time over 60 hours per week.  The idea that a shift supervisor at MickeyD's earning maybe $11/hour is somehow exempt from this requirement because she's a supervisor is just bullshit.

And between that amount and 3x that amount, people should be compensated for overtime as if they were earning that amount.  So if the amount is $50,000 per year, which translates into $24/hour, people earning up to $150,000/year would have to be paid $36/hour for time between 40 and 60 hours a week, and $48/hour beyond that.  The base salary of someone earning $150,000/year would translate to $72/hour, so their time beyond 40 hours would be cheaper than their first 40 hours, but it wouldn't be free. 

I feel very strongly that overtime shouldn't be a free resource; even at fairly high levels of basic compensation, employers should have to pay extra money when they're making you work extra time.  The closer your overtime is to free, and the less power you have to do anything about it, the more likely they are to just gobble up all your 'free' time simply because they can.

And now, thanks to Fallows, the new hobbyhorse:

I'd been vaguely aware for awhile that many part-timers' schedules are becoming increasingly changeable and arbitrary, that such people never know more than a few days in advance when and how much they will work.  Apparently employers are increasingly using software to manage part-time employees' time so they'll only be there when they're most needed, and that they won't go over the line to being full-time and be eligible for full-timers' benefits.  So they might be working mornings on Monday and Thursday, evenings on Tuesday, afternoon on Saturday, and off on other days.

This borders on servitude.  If you're a part-timer with unpredictable hours, you can't get a second part-time job to make ends meet.  Getting day care for your kids is hard, because you never know whether your shift will be at a time when care is available, or whether it will end in time for you to pick the kids up.  There ought to be a law.

And I've got an idea for one: a part-timer's hours should fit in a regular 8-hours-a-day, 5-days-a-week block of time.  The part-timer's hours could bounce around without restriction within that block, but the employer would have to pay time-and-a-half for work outside the block, even if the employee was nowhere near 40 hours for the week. 

The hours wouldn't have to be 9-5, and the days wouldn't have to be M-F, but they'd have to be the same 8 hours every day, and the same 5 days every week. The employer would have to spell out the hours and days in writing, and there would be a limit on the number of times per year (maybe 4-6 times a year) that the employer could change the block of time, otherwise the employer could just change the block of time every week.

That way, the employee would have predictable hours for booking day car, predictable free time that would be available for working a second job, the possibility of a predictable sleep schedule, and so forth. 

It's bad enough when an employer eats up all of a full-time employee's spare time because they're exempt from the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act.  But it's absolutely, crazily unreasonable that an employer can all but monopolize the schedule of a part-time employee as well.

Your thoughts? Open thread.

Comments

[fumphis]

All of these are eminently necessary labor-market reforms. The question is whether the economy, as it exists, can actually bear the deadweight loss. Not to be too Yglesian, but I really think full employment is both more realistic and more likely to get us where we need to be than quixotic legislation. The broader and more troubling question is whether "service economy"-type jobs like low-level food service and retail are actually capable of providing for workers in a humane way, or if that needs to be done through the welfare state.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Have no idea when/if I will be back comenting. Been involved in a messy personal situation involving the house and several other factors. Just stopping by to tell Joe S. the first group of 160 books was dropped off this morning. I have 120 more pulled out but literally couldn't find time/calm to dust books to send them, but they and the others should be there shortly after the first of the year -- barring the next chaos in the queque.

[low-tech cyclist]

fumphis - we live in an era that juxtaposes massive unemployment and underemployment with enormous corporate profits. 'The economy' can bear these costs easily; hell, they'd shake more money down into the hands of those who need it and would spend it, which would help the economy considerably.

And minimum vacation and sick leave requirements, and required compensation for overtime for many workers who currently have to work overtime for free, would result in the current work available being spread over more workers, which would ease unemployment, which would boost the economy by putting people back to work, and strengthen the hand of every worker by rearranging the supply/demand ratio for workers in a positive direction.

[Lori]

I believe the whole doctrine of dead weight losses is BS.

The OP's laundry list of complaints about the employer/employee relationship is a collection of trends that took a sharp wrong turn circa 1980 and have degraded further since. I see them all as side effects of leverage. Short of the radical transformation of post-scarcity and universal basic income (which should be our long-term goal) our strategy should be built around the admittedly cynical and "cartel-ish" (but IMHO morally justified) approach of workfarce-wide labor supply curtailment through a combination of shorter work week, longer vacation and early retirement, the latter effected by a frank willingness to subsidize Social Security from the general funds. Then sneak UBI under the rug by gradual increases in the EITC (and extension of the same to child-free folks).

[Crissa]

To the part-time issue; I'd give them the opportunity to choose not to move someone's part-time schedule around in return for it being pre-set weeks in advance.

[Sir Charles]

L-t c,

You're kicking ass. Sitting bar side in Key West, drinking Wild Turkey and listening to loud, live music. Tomorrow I return to being a mild mannered DC lawyer.

I think that what you are proposing here in terms of a kind of minimalist workplace welfare state is the next phase for Democrats to push. I think it has enormous potential appeal to the electorate.

The first step to blessed Europeaniztion.

[nancy]

Prup, sorry to hear of your troubles. As if December weren't stressful enough already. Do take care.

l-tc People like to make enough money. They spend much of it and save some. Usually not placing it under the mattress. So basic. For most of us. Concept -- 'enough'. What's enough? Minimum wage ain't gonna do it of course.

What is the problem with full-time employment in the work-force when desired, part-time employment in the work-force when desired, and not wasting skills, training and talent? Also encouraging aspirations. Captains of industry or small business owner, the formula ought to be roughly the same. Unless servitude is the object.

Cripes. Minimum wage scramble. You bet.

[low-tech cyclist]

Lori - I suspect I'll go to my grave without seeing anything like even a significant push for universal basic income in this country, and I expect to be around for a few more decades. I'm honestly not sure I'd favor it myself. What I want is for us to create the conditions of perennial full or nearly-full employment by whatever means, so that those who want to work have little problem finding work, and so they've got the leverage to be paid decently, even on the bottom rungs.

I think the goals of shorter work week, longer vacation and early retirement are a long way from political feasibility in our society right now. As you've probably noticed, the age for Social Security full benefits has gone from 65 to 67, and they're currently talking about raising the Medicare eligibility age similarly. we've got enough of a fight just keeping things where they are - and btw, we should all be calling our Congresscritters on Monday about the Medicare eligibility age.

We can't talk about longer vacations when we have no legally mandated paid vacation at all. The first step is to just get the two weeks (that pretty much everybody thinks is fair) on the books. And before a shorter work week, we need to put teeth in the work week we've got.

Like it or not, that's just where we are. While I'm an idealist and have visions of how things should really be, I'm with SC in believing we should look to what's actually achievable. I think the biggest problem with the things I've proposed here is getting them into the discussion in the first place.

nancy - I agree that we should be in a world where people can get full-time work if they want it, and part-time work if they prefer that instead. The question is, how do we get there?

And yes, I believe servitude is the object.

Sir Charles - glad to hear you're enjoying yourself! Sitting at a beach bar in Key West sounds like a great idea, as I sit here in the DC area's gloom. Key West is one of those places I want to go, but haven't quite made it to yet.

[nancy]

The question is, how do we get there?

I've always looked to the parable of the talents somewhat. One would hope our more *devout* legislators would remember that one. You know -- the lesson where all must contribute, as best they can and according to ability and wherewithal. All good in the end, even for Ritchie Rich himself.

l-tc Your ideas as to where we are vis-a-vis management, regulation, and precarious labor need to be an op-ed at WaPo/NYT imo. Bravo.

[low-tech cyclist]

nancy - thanks!

In terms of framing the moral dimension of this discussion, I think that Bill Clinton came up with the best way of putting it: that "people who work hard and play by the rules" ought to get a decent life out of the bargain. I think there's innate and widespread agreement with that formulation, and the Dems need to bring it back and run with it, and publicly measure everything in terms of that simple yardstick.

[kathy a.]

oops -- posted first in the wrong thread.

labor organizing in michgan, prompted by efforts to push through a "right to work" law.

[low-tech cyclist]

kathy - thanks for pointing that out. What's going on in Michigan is worth a front-page comment, so I've written one.

[kathy a.]

back to the original topic -- CA's minimum wage is $8/hour, and san francisco has an ordinance mandating a minimum wage that is now $10.24/hour, which is still low considering the cost of living in The City.

MIT has this wonderful living wage calculator! so, for example, the living wage for a single adult in my county (near SF, but much less expensive) is $11.51/hour; the living wage for a single adult in charleston, SC is $9.74/hour. (note that both living wage rates are significantly above minimum wage.) the calculator pages are extra-great because they break out monthly expenses for families of various sizes, and also note typical hourly wages for various professions.

what this means, as a practical matter, is that financial independence is not really in reach for huge numbers of workers. people live with their parents, or in terrible places; they go without health care; they can't be prepared for emergencies; and they scramble. it is pepper-sauce in the wound to call these workers lazy, to jack them around on hours.

treating workers so badly is also terrible management practice. terrible. instead of having pride in worker competence and retention, the mindset for a number of businesses seems to be that profits rule, and workers are worthless and interchangeable widgets. there needs to be a change of sensibility about that.

[oddjob]

MIT has this wonderful living wage calculator!

Interesting! I didn't realize how relatively expensive it is to live in Lynn, MA.

[kathy a.]

check any obscure armpit of a place you can think of. so far, i have not found any where minimum wage is equal to or greater than living wage, for a single person.

[nancy]

Open thread. Anti-choice messages go home with you and your dry-cleaning using wire hanger message moralizing. In Cincinnati.

Well of course. Let's remember the wire hanger, ladies.

This one leaves me near speechless.

Oh, and certain right-thinking dry-cleaning customers only please: there's a recipe for certain small-business success.

***

kathy, thanks for the MIT calculator. Very helpful. WA state minimum wage allows folks in my region to keep heads above water even with lower wages. At least for a while until a health emergency occurs. ACA will change the quality of life here immensely.

[http://www.amerisleep.com/adjustable-beds.html]

People like to make enough money. They spend much of it and save some. Usually not placing it under the mattress. So basic. For most of us. Concept -- 'enough'. What's enough? Minimum wage ain't gonna do it of course.