‘We live in a society now where any bit helps.’
The human impact brings minimum wage issue down to dollars and cents
Alonda Jackson would use the extra money to pay for rent, instead of using part of her daughter’s disability check to pay for housing.
Isaac A. Culver would use the extra money to pay for his master’s degree. Cheryl Olson would use the extra money to pay for rent and pay off medical debt.
All three Northwest Indiana residents make more than the state and federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, but none of them make over $14 an hour. They all said receiving $15 an hour would give them the opportunity to advance slightly in life.
“Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would put people on a level playing field and give them a fighting chance to make it,” Culver said.
The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 an hour since July 24, 2009, according to Labor Law Center, but many states and cities have enacted legislation to increase the minimum wage.
As of 2021, Indiana is one of 20 states — including Iowa, Kentucky and Mississippi — that enact the federal minimum wage, according to the center. At the start of this year, 21 states have increased their minimum wage rates, according to the center.
But, in Indiana, Democrats have proposed increasing the minimum wage during the 2021 session, and in previous years, but the issue has been blocked by the Republican majority.
Republicans generally don’t support increasing the minimum wage and believe the free market should dictate that, said Kyle Anderson, an economist at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.
The problem Democrats have, Anderson said, is that there isn’t a consensus among the party that the minimum wage should be $15 an hour.
“We’re kind of at a little bit of a stalemate right now,” Anderson said.
A Seattle experiment
In 2014, David Rolf, co-chair of Seattle’s Income Inequality Advisory Commission, said the commission negotiated and formulated the recommendations for Seattle to adopt a phased-in $15 an hour minimum wage, the first city in the nation to do so.
For Seattle, the move to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour was all about timing, said Rolf, the founder and president emeritus of Service Employees International Union 775.
In 2012, Rolf said, the union was supporting food workers’ fight in New York City to get a $15 minimum wage. Around the same time, two billionaires — one Democrat and one Republican — were voicing support for a higher minimum wage, and the Occupy Wall Street movement was underway, he said.
The Republican billionaire discussed how a higher minimum wage would take people off of government assistance, puts more money in consumer’s pockets and
increases the customer-base for businesses, Rolf said.
Meanwhile, in a town about 15 miles outside of Seattle, Rolf said there was a push to unionize workers at the airport. A ballot measure was taken up, and voters voted to increase the minimum wage for airport workers to $15 in 2013, Rolf said.
That vote passed by a only 77 votes, he said.
Then, Rolf said, in Seattle, Mayor Ed Murray, who supported a $15 minimum wage, was elected. Rolf said Murray created the Income Inequality Advisory Commission, which Rolf served on as co-chair.
At the start of 2014, the commission spent four months trying to find a solution to get a $15 minimum wage “that both labor and business could live with,” Rolf said.
During the discussions, Rolf said most businesses were in agreement with the $15 minimum wage, but the restaurant industry was most concerned. But, after the minimum wage was raised, restaurants saw an increase in the number of applicants, he said.
Ultimately, Seattle’s economy “took off like a rocket” after the phased in approach went into effect, Rolf said, The phased in process started in 2015, with most large corporations and businesses offering $15 an hour by 2017 and all small businesses offering $15 as of 2021.
By 2024, the rates will unify across all businesses and increase with inflation after that, he said.
As the minimum age increased to $15, unemployment went down and businesses grew, Rolf said. Currently, Seattle’s minimum wage is $16.69.
“As a result of Seattle doing this, dozens of other cities and states started doing it. So today, $150 billion more are flowing into American low-wage workers’ pockets as a result of the domino effect that started in Seattle,” Rolf said.
The human impact
Alonda Jackson, 47, of Michigan City, is a Help at Home caregiver, and her current client is her daughter.
Her daughter has been epileptic since she was 8 years old. Now 27, the woman has needed two brain surgeries — which decreased the frequencies of seizures from 20 a day to four a month — but now her daughter has severe memory loss, Jackson said.
Jackson said she now makes $12.50 an hour but when she started at Help at Home about one year ago she was making $10.50 an hour. But, while the pay rate increased, Jackson said she saw a decrease in hours.
Her daughter receives a disability check, which in 2008 was $675 a month and as of 2021 is $794 a month, she said.
Every month, she and her husband, who makes $16 an hour, pay a portion of $1,200 for rent, $150 for her daughter’s medication, $80 for water, $210 for NIPSCO, $300 for groceries and $133 for car insurance plus gasoline and other expenses, Jackson said.
She has support from family, Jackson said, but there have been months where she used a portion of her daughter’s disability check to cover rent. If she received $15 an hour, her daughter’s disability check could be saved up for her future, Jackson said.
“That money is for her. I shouldn’t have to pay rent or a bill or anything,” Jackson said. “I feel bad having to take her money and utilize it for us to survive.”
Isaac A. Culver, 33, of Gary has worked at Methodist Hospitals for 8 years in environmental services. He started at $10.75 an hour and now makes about $13 an hour, factoring in shift differentials, Culver said.
He is currently part of the ministry at Jerusalem Baptist Church in Gary, where his father, Isaac Culver Jr., is the pastor, and he’s currently a seminary student working toward his master’s of divinity from McCormick Theological Seminary.
Monthly, Culver said his three-member household has $3,000 in expenses, for mortgage, bills and insurances. His wife is a registered nurse, so they manage most months, but they do occasionally have discussions about paying a partial bill to get by, he said.
Getting $15 an hour would help him pay off his education, Culver said. His wife is also pursing her master’s degree, so an increased wage would help cover that, he said.
“It would put me in a better financial position,” Culver said. “We live in a society now where any bit helps.”
Cheryl Olson, 50, of Crown Point, is a dietary clerk at St. Mary Medical Center in Hobart, where she has worked for five years. She started at $10 an hour and now makes $13.84 an hour.
After paying for insurance and taxes, Olson said she receives under $400 every two weeks.
Following an unexpected medical procedure, she now has about $30,000 left in medical debt, which forced her to file for bankruptcy, Olson said.
Olson, who has one minor child, lives with her boyfriend, and their arrangement is that he pays the mortgage and she covers bills. But, getting up to $15 an hour would help her support her family.
“I could not take care of myself and my child by myself,” Olson said. “Someone still has to do this. It’s very valuable work.”
[sub head] Indiana’ s minimum wage debate[/ subhead]
State Sen. Eddie Melton, D-Gary, said Indiana has to follow suit with the 30 states who have higher minimum wages than the federal level. Melton said he’s filed many bills in the last two years to increase the minimum wage.
The most recent bill, Melton said, would increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour by 2022 and then increase the wage by $1 an hour annually until it reaches $15 an hour by 2027. It would also allow local municipalities to raise their own minimum wage.
The bill was not considered by the legislature.
Increasing the minimum wage would “provide a livable wage for individuals to provide the basic human needs for their family” like food, clothing and shelter, Melton said.
State Rep. Michael Aylesworth, R-Hebron, said he generally opposes government “setting the floor” for minimum wage. The market, in a free-market economy, should set the minimum wage, he said.
“I was never in favor of government setting (the minimum wage) because inflation makes it meaningless in a year or two,” Aylesworth said.
But, Aylesworth said he’d support businesses raising their own minimum wages.
The hurdle, Melton said, is acknowledging that there is a problem in the state’s pay structure and not allowing bills that address minimum wage to be heard, which prevents discussion and debate.
“This can be a bipartisan issue. Let’s not make this a Republican versus Democrat issue. Let’s make this about the American people. Let’s make this about Hoosiers,” Melton said.