It all started in 2012 with a group of protesters in front of a McDonald’s demanding a minimum wage of $ 15 – an idea that even many liberal lawmakers found bizarre. In the years that followed, his struggle gained momentum across the country, including in conservative states with low union membership and generally weak labor laws.
On Friday, 20 states and 32 cities and municipalities will raise the minimum wage. In 27 of these locations, the wage floor will reach or exceed US $ 15 an hour, according to a report released on Thursday by the National Labor Law Project, which supports minimum wage increases.
The strength of the movement – an electoral measure to raise Florida’s minimum wage to $ 15 by 2026 was passed in November – could put further pressure on Congress to raise the federal minimum wage by $ 7.25 an hour, where has been around since 2009. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. endorsed $ 15 an hour at the federal level and other changes sought by labor groups, such as ending the practice of lower minimum wages for workers such as restaurant workers who receive tips .
But even without Congressional action, union activists said they would continue to promote their campaign at the state and local levels. In 2026, 42 percent of Americans will they work at a location with a minimum wage of at least $ 15 an hour, according to an estimate by the Economic Policy Institute cited in the NELP report.
“These wages rising in a record number of states are the result of years of defending workers and years of marching on the streets and organizing their co-workers and their communities,” said Yannet Lathrop, a researcher and policy analyst at the group.
Wages are rising as workers struggle amid a recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic that left millions unemployed.
“The Covid crisis has really exacerbated inequalities in society,” said Greg Daco, chief economist at Oxford Economics in the United States. “This has given more strength to these movements that seek to ensure that everyone benefits from a strong labor market in the form of a sustainable salary.”
Workers during the pandemic were subject to leave, wage cuts and reduced hours. Low-paid service workers did not have the option of working from home, and the customer-oriented nature of their jobs puts them at greater risk of contracting the virus. Many retailers gave workers increases – or “hero pay” – early in the pandemic, only to quietly end the practice in the summer, even though the virus continued to increase in many states.
“The coronavirus pandemic has pushed many working families into deep poverty,” said Anthony Advincula, director of communications for Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a nonprofit organization focused on improving wages and working conditions. “So this increase in the minimum wage will be a great welcome boost for low-income workers, especially in the restaurant industry.”
Mary Kay Henry, international president of the Service Employees International Union, said the union movement would make getting more workers to $ 15 an hour or more a priority in 2021.
“There are millions more workers who need more money in their pockets,” she said, adding that the election of Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would reinforce the effort. “We have an incredible opportunity.”
Since many hourly workers are black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian, people of color earn more from increases in the minimum wage. A 2018 study by the Economic Policy Institute found that black workers are much more likely to receive poverty-level wages than white workers.
“It is the most dramatic action to create racial equality,” said Henry.
Some economists say that raising the minimum wage will benefit the economy and may be an important part of the recovery from the pandemic recession. This is partly because low-income workers generally spend most of the money they earn, and these expenditures occur mainly where they live and work.
Kate Bahn, director of labor market policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, said that after the 2007-9 recession, growth has been anemic for years as wages have stagnated and the labor market has slowly regained its way.
“There is broader recognition that the weak wage growth that we have seen over the past 30 years and since the Great Recession reflects structural imbalances in the economy and structural inequality,” said Bahn.
Many business groups argue that raising the minimum wage will hurt small businesses, already plagued by the pandemic. More than 110,000 restaurants closed permanently or for a long time during the pandemic, according to the National Restaurant Association.
The increase in the minimum wage could lead employers to lay off some workers to pay others, said David Neumark, professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine.
“There is a ton of research that says raising the minimum wage can cause some job losses,” he said. “Many workers are helped, but some are harmed.”
A 2019 Congressional Budget Office study found that a $ 15 federal minimum wage would increase the pay of 17 million workers who earned less than that and potentially another 10 million workers who earned slightly more. According to the study’s average estimate, this would cause 1.3 million other workers to lose their jobs.
In New York, Republicans in the State Senate asked Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, to suspend the increases that went into effect on Thursday, arguing that they could be “the last straw” for some small businesses.
Although increases in the minimum wage beyond a certain point can lead to job losses, Ms. Bahn of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth argued that “we are nowhere near that point”.
Economic research has found that recent increases in the minimum wage have not caused huge job losses. In a 2019 study, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that wages rose sharply for leisure and hospitality workers in New York counties bordering Pennsylvania, who had a lower minimum, while employment growth continued. . In many cases, higher minimum wages are launched over several years to give companies time to adapt.
Regardless of whether there is federal action, more state electoral initiatives will seek to raise the minimum wage, said Arindrajit Dube, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
“At a basic level, people think this is a question of fairness,” said Dube. “There is widespread support for the idea that people who are working should receive a living wage.”
Jeanna Smialek contributed reports.