Alabama's Morning News with JT
Erin Real says the wages are going up
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That's renterswearhouse.com or call 303-974-9444 to speak to a rent estate advisor today. Despite inflation, the actual number of low-wage workers are going down and that's a good thing. For some, we're joined by Aaron Rial to explain what it means. Good morning, Aaron. Good morning. Yes. So just 13 percent of workers in the U.S. are now earning less than $15 an hour. So just two years ago, that was 31 percent. This is all according to new data from Oxfam. The reason this is interesting and why it matters is that even accounting for inflation, which has been insane, as we all know, if you went grocery shopping lately, $15 an hour in 2024 has the same buying power as $14 in 2022. That's pretty remarkable. But I just want to make this very clear. Oxfam was not like, yay, we did it. Low-wage jobs are gone. No. Essentially, what they did was they revised its definition of a low-wage worker from those earning less than $15 an hour to those earning less than $17. But at the same time, fewer than one in four workers in the U.S. now falls into that category, which is a nice thing. But Aaron is not like everybody got a raise across the board. Basically, the people at the lowest end are making more money. People who used to make $8 an hour are making $12 an hour. But I suspect there's an awful lot of people who were making $30,000 a year who were still making $30,000 a year. You nailed it. You said it absolutely correctly. And frankly, now that what it does is basically just put that people who are considered low-wage workers, more of them into the basket, given that it's up to $17. But it's interesting. There's this proposal in Congress right now. It's raise the wage act. And it's basically wants to raise the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour. This kind of blew my mind, because it shouldn't. But when you look at federal minimum wages, not state, federal, employers are still allowed to pay below $2.25 an hour to tipped workers. I mean, I would think a human being's time is just worth more than $7 an hour. And they allow this for agricultural and domestic work as well. This is working poor is not even a good enough description for this. This is far too low. However, essentially, people will work for what they'll work for. You can say that if you made the minimum wage one cent, you wouldn't have anyone working for one cent. They just wouldn't work for that. So there is some lower level at which people will work. And there are some people who are better suited for jobs. If you made it $5 an hour, okay, you wouldn't get many 45-year-old people with a college degree applying, but you might have some kids who are 12 years old, they'd do that job because it's the only job they can get. Minimum wage are meant for minimum entry-level people. And I think too often, we have people who are attempting to try and use a minimum wage job to feed a family of four, and it's not working, but the solution isn't to raise their pay. The solution is for that person to go find a job that pays more. And we need to make more of those jobs where people can make more once they've got the experience, but leave the jobs where people have entry-level. Otherwise, we're not going to have any way for people to get in, and you're just going to have machines take over, and everyone's going to be sitting around going, "Why don't I have a job?" You're absolutely right. And you say that very cogently and succinctly, all of that said, increasing the minimum wage would lift millions out of poverty, and you're right, minimum wage jobs are not meant to provide a sound living for a family of four. No, that is a different thing, but a big part of this as well is the gender and racial inequality. So you have women, blacks, and Latinos all making significantly less than white men. And again, the student workers, it's a different thing. It isn't your full-time job, so minimum wage is there, but increasing minimum wage, while difficult for some businesses to sustain, for sure. If you look at inflation and you bring up a good point, people wouldn't work for a cent, but they might work for $5. Very true. But when you can't get lunch at McDonald's for less than 10 bucks, given the inflationary environment, the numbers that don't work out. I appreciate what you're saying. Erin Rial, thank you so much for joining us this morning on Alabama's Morning News. I have to disagree on that one just because it's a vicious cycle because then we say, we're going to pay all the people at McDonald's. It's $18 an hour. Yay, by the way, a hamburger now costs $18. Well, how'd that happen? Because we're paying the people working their $18 an hour. It's going to constantly drive prices, and then people will say, "Well, I need more money, because things cost more." And then things cost more because we're paying them more. Let the market drive wages. Don't let the government drive wages when you put the government in the driver's seat, everybody crashes. Well, it sounds like the tenants at your rental property sure know how to throw a great party. You just wish they wouldn't throw so many parties on Tuesdays until 4 a.m. And if they could pay the rent on time, that would be nice too. Being a landlord can be stressful, but it doesn't have to be. Let renters warehouse handle the hard part of property management for you, like finding quality tenants you can trust. Renters warehouse manages thousands of single-family homes and specializes in locating reliable tenants at the right price for your property, usually in a matter of days. 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