Pennies from Raleigh
Article published Jan 7, 2006
Greensboro News and Record
North Carolina's neediest workers deserve more than they're being paid, state Treasurer Richard Moore said this week in a nervy sermon to a roomful of business people.
Moore, a Democrat who is widely expected to run for governor in 2008, called, loudly and clearly, for an increase in North Carolina's minimum wage. "North Carolinians who work hard and play by the rules should be able to make ends meet," Moore said at a forum sponsored by the N.C. Citizens for Business and Industry and the N.C. Bankers Association.
In this, the campaign preseason, when hopefuls set out to raise their profiles and define their platforms, score this one a touchdown on its buzz value alone. Yet aside from the political mileage he might have garnered, Moore also made a valid point: North Carolina's minimum wage of $5.15, which is identical to the federal minimum, has not increased since 1997 and has fallen hopelessly behind the rate of inflation.
Just ask state Rep. Alma Adams of Greensboro, who has pushed legislation that would raise the state's minimum wage since 1994.
Last summer, Adams tried again, authoring a bill that called for increasing the minimum wage to $6 an hour. The House passed it in August but the bill was never reconciled with a similar bill in the Senate.So many of the working poor are still saddled with long hours and low pay, while obstacles such as child care and transportation block the path to more education and better jobs.
A full-time minimum-wage worker who puts in 40 hours a week would earn $10,712 a year, well below the federal poverty level. Adjusted for inflation, Moore said, that places the state's minimum wage at its second-lowest level in 50 years.
The minimum wage in 2004 was 26 percent less than it was in 1979, notes the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.
Small wonder 17 states have adopted minimum wages higher than the federal guideline.
Still, some employers argue that an increase in the minimum wage actually would do more harm than good and that it primarily would benefit teenagers who work part-time jobs. They also say that the cost of a minimum wage increase would force them to cut jobs, actually hurting the people it was designed to help.
But Moore noted that a one-dollar increase in North Carolina's minimum wage would benefit more than 100,000 workers, three-quarters of whom are older than 20 and a third of whom work full time. And studies show no appreciable job losses caused by minimum wage increases.
His political ambitions aside, Moore has taken on a worthwhile cause.An increase in the minimum wage clearly won't erase poverty by itself. But it is one means to help those who might otherwise seek public assistance find a new sense of self-reliance, self-worth and self-respect.
Copyright © 2005The News & Record
Greensboro News and Record
North Carolina's neediest workers deserve more than they're being paid, state Treasurer Richard Moore said this week in a nervy sermon to a roomful of business people.
Moore, a Democrat who is widely expected to run for governor in 2008, called, loudly and clearly, for an increase in North Carolina's minimum wage. "North Carolinians who work hard and play by the rules should be able to make ends meet," Moore said at a forum sponsored by the N.C. Citizens for Business and Industry and the N.C. Bankers Association.
In this, the campaign preseason, when hopefuls set out to raise their profiles and define their platforms, score this one a touchdown on its buzz value alone. Yet aside from the political mileage he might have garnered, Moore also made a valid point: North Carolina's minimum wage of $5.15, which is identical to the federal minimum, has not increased since 1997 and has fallen hopelessly behind the rate of inflation.
Just ask state Rep. Alma Adams of Greensboro, who has pushed legislation that would raise the state's minimum wage since 1994.
Last summer, Adams tried again, authoring a bill that called for increasing the minimum wage to $6 an hour. The House passed it in August but the bill was never reconciled with a similar bill in the Senate.So many of the working poor are still saddled with long hours and low pay, while obstacles such as child care and transportation block the path to more education and better jobs.
A full-time minimum-wage worker who puts in 40 hours a week would earn $10,712 a year, well below the federal poverty level. Adjusted for inflation, Moore said, that places the state's minimum wage at its second-lowest level in 50 years.
The minimum wage in 2004 was 26 percent less than it was in 1979, notes the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.
Small wonder 17 states have adopted minimum wages higher than the federal guideline.
Still, some employers argue that an increase in the minimum wage actually would do more harm than good and that it primarily would benefit teenagers who work part-time jobs. They also say that the cost of a minimum wage increase would force them to cut jobs, actually hurting the people it was designed to help.
But Moore noted that a one-dollar increase in North Carolina's minimum wage would benefit more than 100,000 workers, three-quarters of whom are older than 20 and a third of whom work full time. And studies show no appreciable job losses caused by minimum wage increases.
His political ambitions aside, Moore has taken on a worthwhile cause.An increase in the minimum wage clearly won't erase poverty by itself. But it is one means to help those who might otherwise seek public assistance find a new sense of self-reliance, self-worth and self-respect.
Copyright © 2005The News & Record
posted by One Dollar More Coalition | 8:06 AM
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