President-elect Joe Biden has called for a $15 per hour federalminimum wage as part of his new $1.9 trillionstimulus package.- That increase could materially impact millions of workers, and provide relief for public safety net programs.
- While President Donald Trump has argued raising the minimum wage could harm employers, it hasn't been shown to impact employment.
President-elect
That pay bump could be hugely consequential for millions of workers. The federal minimum wage, which hasn't changed since 2009, is currently $7.25 - less than half of what the new wage would be.
That means over 20 million workers could get a raise - and a new study finds the pay bump could also be a boon for taxpayers.
$4, found that the country's current low minimum wage costs taxpayers more than $100 billion a year. That's because nearly half of the working families who would benefit from the pay bump rely on at least one safety net program, such as SNAP or Medicaid.
Those programs fill in the gaps for millions of Americans, and 42% of the $254 billion spent annually on safety net programs goes toward families who would now get a raise.
"Many low-wage workers are in service occupations where they have a higher risk of exposure to COVID-19, but have not seen pay increases during the pandemic," study coauthor and chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center Ken Jacobs wrote in a statement to Insider. "When minimum wage jobs don't pay enough, these workers often turn to public safety net programs to make ends meet."
Jacobs said that raising the minimum wage would help bring savings to those public safety net programs, which could prove helpful as states work toward recovering from the pandemic recession.
And, as Jacobs noted, many essential workers rely on those programs; so a raise in their wages would materially benefit both those workers and the programs themselves.
"President-elect Biden specifically noted that 'Too many families are unable to afford childcare, while early educators earn wages so low that they can't support their own families,'" Jacobs said. "Our new report found that half of childcare workers and 6 out of 10 homecare workers are paid so little that their families rely on one or more public safety net programs."
As $4, the United States was already facing a childcare crisis - and it could lead to an exodus of women from the workplace.
$4 - $4 - but a new national federal minimum wage would make $15 a country-wide requirement.
President-elect Biden has long been a proponent of increasing the federal minimum wage to $15, $4. At the time, President Donald Trump argued that a wage hike could hurt employers - but, $4, raises to the minimum wage haven't been shown to impact employment.
Biden would also end the $4 and the $4, $4. The $4 The current national tipped minimum wage is $4. Under the subminimum wage, $4. Both types of wages have been scrutinized for their negative impact on workers.
"Business owners welcome President-elect Biden's call to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 because they know we can't build a strong economy on a minimum wage that pays workers too little to live on," Holly Sklar, CEO of $4, said in a statement to Insider.
"Businesses depend on customers who make enough to buy what they are selling, from food to clothes to car repairs. We're in the longest period in history without a minimum wage raise, and that's bad for business as well as workers."
The announcement comes as $4. The workers are striking on what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.'s 92nd birthday.