I think that this is a very well written article with lots of interesting facts in favor of the higher minimum wage. However, I do have a few questions about some of the studies that were cited here.

I would like to have seen for example, some of the data points used in the Berkeley study. It was not clear to me whether or not they based their conclusions on past minimum wage hikes or the projected future hikes. This makes a huge difference in the outcomes as past hikes have been years if not a decade or so apart, and were about 5-20% increases which could be absorbed into the economy.

The current increases being considered are a whopping 50% over a 2 to 3 year period in an economy which can only be called anemic at best ( unless you are working in high tech and are not working for minimum wage). I strongly agree with Mr. Ekwall that more data is needed and the existing data needs to be carefully analyzed before every city jumps on the "me too" bandwagon which seems to be prevalent in the Bay Area.

The glut of high tech jobs in Mountain View brought much higher wages, but that did not help most of the low and medium income people that live (or lived) here. Many were forced out or saw their rents go up precipitously. If minimum wage is raised at the rate being proposed, $15 by 18, no one should be surprised if rents are adjusted in a short time as a result. There will also be at least some increased in the costs of goods and services.

I would recommend that those who make minimum wage and live in these cities where the minimum wage increases are being proposed, calculate what percentage of their income currently is being allocated for necessities such as food and shelter, and then perform the calculation again each year after the increase passes (and assuming that they still have a job). It would be interesting to have hard data to provide for the next time this idea is considered.

I would suggest that the City Councils to a hard look at Walmart ( Web Link ), Wendys ( Web Link ), McDonald's ( Web Link ), and the failed experiment at Gravity Payments ( Web Link ) where the owner made everyone's pay, including his own, al living wage of $70,000/Yr, and ended up losing his best employees and having to rent out rooms in his house to other people just to make ends meet.

I am assuming that all the cities currently considering this will go ahead and pass it anyway because it is the 'compassionate' thing to do, and if they fail to do so the city leaders may think that people will consider them to be heartless and unsympathetic to the plight of low and middle income residents.

As someone who worked for minimum wage for many years, I can honestly say that the best way to improve one's life is through more education and training. It is expensive, but there are a lot of sources of free money for those in the lower income levels. There are also guaranteed loans for those that exceed the income limit and over time one can earn far more than what will be spent to repay those loans.

I have lived through 4 decades of politicians that promised to make my life better only to find that most of the policies only benefited their reelection chances, and their friends. In the end, I realized that if I wanted to make my life better, I had to go out and work hard and make sacrifices for it. Ask anyone who is successful and they will tell you the same thing, no minimum wage raise ever made them successful or allowed them to achieve their full potential.


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

Thank you Gennady for your article and to you Jim for your reply.

Indeed, a $15 per hour wage in a city where the average house is north of $1 million is slam dunk policy. However, a national policy of $15 is destructive in small rural communities with a very different cost of living structure.