“Do you people have any idea what you have done to the Arizona economy? When wages were at $8.50 an hour a pizza, wings and salad was $38.00 now its over $50.00. Guess what, no more pizza and no more restaurant.”–angry Facebook comment, Feb.7, 2019
Well, it’s another new year in Flagstaff, which means three things. One, it is now socially acceptable to say out loud what you have been thinking since October (“I don’t care about skiing: I’m sick of winter”). Two, Phoenicians are still apparently okay with letting their children play alongside a major roadway (you have to wonder if the same people who hop out of the car on the side of I-17 also stop halfway across the Golden Gate Bridge to let the kids “enjoy the view.”) And three, (for the last few years at least), you now have another new chance to get into a fight about the increased minimum wage on social media (and probably in person, as well).
Unlike those first two things, however, the fight about the minimum wage is by no means a local issue. In fact, with only 21 states still sticking to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, your chances of getting into an argument over minimum wage are better than one in two. Yeah, you read that right: $7.25. The federal minimum wage has not budged an inch in over a decade. Unless of course you are a federal worker being paid in connection to a federal contract, and then the minimum wage is $10.80. This, I can only assume, is because, unlike certain congressional representatives, who are only good with things like tweeting poorly photo-shopped pictures of former President Obama, and, presumably, getting reelected, federal contract hiring managers are good when it comes to things like math, and therefore have figured out that you can’t actually get anyone to show up for a job interview if that job doesn’t pay enough to allow for the luxury of sleeping indoors.
Or, apparently, the luxury of sleeping at all. Because it’s hard to get a good night’s sleep when you’re consumed with worry about your finances. As 99% of us know all too well. But for that 1% that didn’t know, a recent study came out that confirmed just how devastating it is to live in poverty—and make no mistake about it, in a country where there is not one single community where $7.25 an hour will rent a one-bedroom apartment, $7.25 an hour is poverty.
A study by economists at UC-Berkeley showed that for every 10% increase in the minimum wage, the suicide rate of those holding a high school diploma or less decreased by 3.9%. Berkeley too liberal for you? The American Journal of Preventative Medicine published a report stating that a one dollar increase in minimum wage led to an overall decrease in suicides of 1.9%. Using those numbers, we can extrapolate that nearly 500 more people in the state of Arizona will still be alive ten years after voters approved raising Arizona’s minimum. The study also shows that increasing wages leads to lower rates of recidivism, and higher levels of debt repayment, so even if you aren’t one of the people directly affected by a lower suicide rate—even if you aren’t one of the people who gets to keep your father, or your sister, or your best friend, you still benefit from a community that has less crime and more money in circulation. You also benefit from living in a community that believes that all work has dignity, as do all workers. A community that still believes in the words of Franklin Roosevelt when he said, “It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”
In short, a community that actually is a community.
But hey: that’s a real shame about your pizza and wings.