Guess what…

Wages are going up.  For non-management workers.  On their own.  No government intervention.

The average hourly wage for workers below management level — everyone from school bus drivers to stockbrokers — rose 2.8 percent from October 2005 to October of this year, after being adjusted for inflation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Only a year ago, it was falling by 1.5 percent.

So…

Why do we need to increase the minimum wage?  That seems to be just about the only thing that nearly all Dems agree is needed.

If you’re really bored visit the Bureau of Labor and Statistics website (the link will take you to their page for wages). They divide national wage data into over 800 labor categories (822 I believe) and of those 822 guess how many have a median hourly wage below the $7.25 per hour minimum the Dems want to impose.  Four - and one of those is waiters and waitresses and I don’t believe that BLS includes tip earnings in their wage number, although I’m not sure.  With tip earnings included they would easily be excluded from this dubious list.  The remaining three (median wage in parenthesis):

  • Gaming dealers ($6.85)
  • Combined food preparation and serving workers, including fast food ($7.11)
  • Dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers ($7.23)

The overall national average median wage for all occupations is $14.15, while the mean is $18.21.  The mean hourly wage for each and every category is above $7.25.

The simple fact is that a minimum wage increase is not needed.  The labor market justly rewards workers who put forth only a modicum of effort.  Even with the current minimum wage, nearly all workers already earn more than the Dems would give them.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Monday, December 11th, 2006 at 6:49 am and is filed under Economy, Politics, Social Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.