Living Wages Improve the Economy
The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. It has not increased since 2009. In Michigan, the minimum wage is $12.48 per hour. A recent article on “MLive” stated that people living in Michigan need to earn approximately $25 per hour, to afford rent.
I have heard a number of arguments for why we should not pay people a living wage. These arguments include things like “minimum wage jobs are meant for high school and college students” and “if people want higher wages they should ‘better themselves’” and most frequently of all, raising the minimum wages will cause prices to go up.
If you walk into our local Walmart, Meijers, Menards, etc., you will see that a large number of their employees are well beyond high school and college aged people. These are hardworking individuals who provide essential services to us every day. They frequently must work on holidays and weekends, and have schedules and shifts that are ever changing from week to week.
During the Covid Pandemic, cashiers, those who stock shelves, those who work in Nursing Homes, and those who work in Home Healthcare were deemed “essential workers.” Judges, office workers, and corporate officers were told to stay home. Our essential workers were on the front lines, risking their health every day. They ensured our food supply remained intact and those who were sick received the care they needed.
Now, the Federal Department of Labor is suggesting we should eliminate the minimum wage requirement for Home Health Care Workers. A testing ground to see if they can get away with eliminating minimum wage requirements for everyone.
Meanwhile, among those who were not considered ‘Essential Workers’, were the CEO of McDonalds, who receives an annual compensation of approximately $19.2 million per year, while McDonald employees earn $12.50 to $15 per hour. The CEO of Walmart receives an annual compensation of approximately $24.7 million per, while the average Walmart employee earns approximately $15.00 per hour.
It is also worth noting that McDonald’s net profit for the first quarter of 2025 was $1.87 billion and Walmart’s net profit in 2024 was approximately $16.27 billion (a 44.1% increase over the previous year). Clearly the large corporations can afford to pay their essential workers a living wage.
Moreover, history makes it clear that paying employees a living wage improves our economy. It reduces the number of people who must rely upon programs like Medicaid and SNAP, thus removing the overall cost to taxpayers for these programs. It increases the revenue the government collects in income tax. And it increases the amount of money everyday people can spend, as evidenced by the “stimulus checks” our government has sent out in the past in to “stimulate” the economy.
Before we had unions, middle class America was almost non-existent. You had the wealthy business owners and you had the poor laborers who worked on our farms, in our factories, in our lumber mills, and in our mines. They were deliberately kept poor, allowing the rich to become richer. It was, in a very real sense, a form of slavery.
When the people finally rose up, formed unions, and fought back, the middle class was born. The birth of the middle class created an economic boom, the likes of which our country had never seen before. However, the middle class has been shrinking since the 1970s. Meanwhile, our federal deficit has gone from billions of dollars to trillions of dollars, with no end in sight for the ongoing increases.
Finally, I cannot end this without pointing out that the type of job one has and the amount of money one earns does not define the quality of the person. I have far more respect for the person willing to go into someone’s home, bath them, cook for them, and clean for them, than I do for billionaire CEO’s and Shareholders who have no respect or regard for the very people who perform the labor that allows them to earn that money.
Leah Belanger
July 23, 2025