A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.
Updated. In an oped published in today’s Flathead Beacon, David Fern, the long term member of the Whitefish school board who’s running for the Democratic nomination for HD-5 (map), called for raising Montana’s minimum wage to $11 per hour.
Two bills to raise the state’s minimum wage to $10.10, one (HB-384) by Rep. Mary Ann Dunwell, the other (SB-2) by Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy, failed in the 2015 legislative session.
Fern’s proposal is very modest.
Democratic Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley propose raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. Hillary Clinton favors a raise to $12 an hour.
Every time someone proposes raising the minimum wage, it triggers the right’s Pavlovian reaction to economic justice. Those who worship at the altar of cheap labor warn, with Richard Nixonesque gravitas, and with faces so straight they seem set in epoxy, that paying workers more will hurt businesses and cost the jobs of low wage workers.
Those who believe that will believe anything. Actually, raising the minimum wage puts more money in the economy and helps people pull themselves out of poverty.
If paying hamburger slingers at least $15 per hour causes a half-dollar increase in the price of a cheeseburger, or even double that, I’ll gladly pay it and add a tip. So will all decent people.
