Minimum wage

COVID showed us who essential workers are and they should be paid more

On Monday, we saluted the backbone of our nation — its workers. If we did not recognize their value before, COVID-19 offered an education in appreciation. “Essential” workers remained on the job amid lockdowns and threats of illness. The crisis that struck in 2020 would have been worse without them.

We learned soon enough the broad definition of “essential.” It included almost every worker we might have taken for granted before — cashiers and mechanics, teachers and janitors, doctors and police officers. Each (and many other professions) provided a sense of normal and connection during an abnormal and disconnected time.

As stout as the virus that attacked us, and remains very much a threat, they kept the vast engine of America humming. They greased its wheels, tuned its engine, maintained its cogs and gears. They kept it going.

Concerns about COVID-19 have mostly relaxed with vaccines and treatments, although health officials expect a new wave this fall, but we do our workers a disservice if we do not hold them in the same esteem now as we did during the height of the pandemic. More than 157 million Americans are part of the workforce, and they continue to toil on our behalf, many of them anonymously. They deserve our thanks.

As with other days that celebrate vital Americans — principally, Veterans Day and Memorial Day — we should honor our workers every day. Not with parades or speeches or appliance sales. Those are fine, but they are the trappings of reverence and don’t reflect enduring appreciation.

Labor Day became a national holiday in 1894, decreed by President Grover Cleveland in response to a strike by railroad workers. The striking workers, vilifi ed by much of the country, were branded “anarchists,” a term that would be replaced by “communists” a few decades later. They were neither; they were hardworking Americans who toiled 12 hours a day, seven days a week, often for low wages.

Conditions are less Dickensian now — although the plight of many migrant children working in bruising jobs is quite Dickensian — but millions of laborers continue to work for low wages. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, a level that has not changed since 2009. A living wage, by comparison, is about $17 an hour, depending on the state. A living wage is defined as the minimum income a worker must earn to meet basic needs.

“It is no small thing for an American to be able to go into a fast-food restaurant and to buy a double cheeseburger, fries and a large Coke for a price equal to less than an hour of labor at the minimum wage — indeed, in the long sweep of history, this represents a remarkable achievement,” Michael Pollan, a former Harvard professor, once said.

Like the federal minimum wage, the minimum wage in Texas is $7.25 an hour, and like the federal minimum wage, it has not changed since 2009.

Many states, including conservative ones such as Arkansas and Missouri, have raised their minimum wages; not so Texas.

“A reasonable increase, we know it would help the salaries of women, the salaries of young people as well as minorities,” said state Rep. Lina Ortega, D-El Paso, whose legislation to increase the minimum wage never got out of committee in 2019.

Opponents argue raising the minimum wage would spur inflation and bankrupt small businesses.

The trouble with this debate is that there is no debate. Politicians hunker down in their partisan trenches, and when the verbal volleys end, nothing is accomplished.

In 2021, House Democrats voted to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The bill failed to win a single Republican vote. And the result was the same as always — the status quo held.

“Whether they are greeting us at Walmart, serving us hamburgers at McDonald’s, providing childcare for our kids or waiting on our table at a diner in rural America, there are too many Americans trying to survive and raise families on $9, $10 or $12 an hour,” Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote in an essay for the Guardian in April. “It cannot be done.”

More than 1.5 million workers earn the minimum wage. It's past time for the nation and Texas to raise this economic floor.