$7.25 Isn’t Cutting It in This Economy. Voters Support Raising the Minimum Wage to $20 per Hour
By Lew Blank
The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour — a rate that hasn’t budged since 2009.
Someone working 40 hours per week at the federal minimum wage will only earn about $1,300 per month, which is barely above the typical cost of rent in most states. Paying for groceries, utilities, childcare, health insurance, transportation, and other basic necessities on top of that is practically impossible. Even McDonald’s acknowledged in 2013 that the current minimum wage is not a livable one, projecting that its workers would need to get a second full-time job to make ends meet.
In a new Data for Progress survey, we tested whether voters think $7.25 an hour is a reasonable, livable wage. Specifically, we asked voters to input what they believe an average worker would need to earn in order to have a decent quality of life — that is, to afford basic necessities and other essential bills without struggling. We find that, on average, voters believe that a typical American needs to earn $26 an hour to have a decent quality of life.
Next, we asked voters again to indicate what they believe the average American needs to earn to have a decent quality of life, but this time from a predetermined set of options. We find that a clear majority of voters — 63 percent — believe workers need to earn more than $20 an hour to make ends meet. This includes majorities of Democrats (71 percent), Independents (63 percent), and Republicans (56 percent).
Only 1 percent of voters think that a wage of under $10 an hour is livable, and only 6 percent believe a wage of $15 an hour or less is livable.
We then split our sample into three different groups to test support for raising the minimum wage to the following amounts: $12 an hour, $17 an hour, and $20 an hour. We find that all three proposed increases to the minimum wage are widely popular, including with Independents and Republicans. Voters support a $12 minimum wage by a +72-point margin, a $17 minimum wage by a +54-point margin, and a $20 minimum wage by a +49-point margin.
Democrats are overwhelmingly favorable of all three proposed wage increases, with each garnering at least 89 percent support. Independents are also widely supportive, with about three-quarters supporting each proposal. Republicans are supportive of all three proposals as well, with at least 60 percent support for each. Notably, there is essentially no difference between support for a $17 minimum wage and support for a $20 minimum wage among Independents (with 74 percent supporting both) or Republicans (with 60 percent supporting both).
The federal minimum wage is not currently a living wage, and voters want that to change. Our polling finds that raising the minimum wage is not only popular with Democrats, but with Independents and Republicans as well. Furthermore, voters are supportive not only of a more modest minimum wage hike to $12 an hour, but also of more substantial increases of the minimum wage to $17 and $20 an hour. With inflation and the cost of living still top-of-mind for a majority of Americans, it’s time to finally raise the minimum wage for hard-working Americans.
Lew Blank (@LewBlank) is a polling analyst at Data for Progress.