Is There Now a De Facto $15 Minimum Wage?

A piece at Issues and Insights describes a provision in the CARES relief act that will make economic recovery from the lockdowns more difficult in multiple ways. "New York Sen. Chuck Schumer was right to call this 'unemployment on steroids,'" the piece notes of the unemployment rate, which will incentivize not returning to work in any locale whose minimum wage isn't at least $15 per hour.

Issues and Insights quotes the following from the Wall Street Journal:

A welfare-state politician, lying in wait for election time, after passage of the CARES Act. (Image by David Clode, via Unsplash, license.)

Tracy Jackson, 50, of Nacogdoches, Texas, started receiving unemployment benefits after losing her job as a cook at a college. Her benefits total $1,200 every two weeks, almost twice what she would earn on the job.

She wants to return to work, but being stuck at home has given her time to reflect. The extra money she receives in unemployment benefits has made her conclude she had been underpaid at her previous job, earning $10.30 an hour after five years.

"I like the college, I really do," she said. "But they're going to have to come with more money. If they don't, I'm not going to be there."

The article elaborates a bit further on the economic and possible political consequences of this latest attempt by the Democrats to not "allow a crisis go to waste" -- or as a normal and decent person might put it, to kick us while we are (locked) down.

-- CAV