Closer to a Decent Living

The state’s Industrial Welfare Commission is scheduled to decide today whether workers who earn the minimum wage deserve a raise, their first in close to seven years. The compassionate answer is yes.

Nearly 322,000 employees work for $3.35 an hour, a meager $134 a week, less than $7,000 a year. In fact, a parent with one or more children would do better on welfare.

The minimum wage has lost 27% in buying power since 1981, when the current rate took effect. How do poor people stretch the same meager pay checks year after year when the costs to feed growing children, to clothe them and to keep a roof over their heads keep rising? A decent wage would keep pace with the cost of living and keep small families off welfare. A pay check ought to provide a way out of poverty.

Congress also is considering a raise. A measure, sponsored by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), would increase the minimum wage to $4.65 by 1990 and would index future raises at 50% of the average pay of private employees who are neither supervisors nor farm workers. That measure and a similar bill, sponsored by Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Los Angeles), face strong opposition from the Reagan Administration.

The Administration says that job training is a better approach to reducing poverty, and then it skimps on money for job training. Business leaders argue that a higher wage would cost jobs, give an edge to foreign competitors and force companies operating on thin margins to go under. Those are tired old arguments that history does not support.

Democrats argue that poor workers would put the money right back into the economy because they spend virtually every penny that they earn and can’t afford to squirrel any away. Something closer to a decent wage would also provide a stronger incentive to work for a living rather than accept welfare.

But the working poor need not wait for federal action. The government allows states to set rates higher than the national minimum. Six states have done so. California should be next.

The California Legislature has approved a bill, sponsored by Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), to increase the rate to $4.25. Gov. George Deukmejian has indicated, however, that he would prefer the state commission, which he appointed, to evaluate the rate. The Industrial Welfare Commission, guided by compassion, should recommend a meaningful raise that would push the paychecks of the working poor closer to a living wage.