The Rhetorical Free Ride in the Minimum Wage Debate

There’s an asymmetry whenever we debate raising the minimum wage. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 is back in the political spotlight. For a minute leave aside how you feel about this issue, and just focus on the discourse. There’s a circular nature to each debate where one side wants to raise it, one side does not and the same talking points get rolled out on each side. When debates are framed as “change” versus “do nothing”, there’s an asymmetry to the debate where the “do nothing” side gets granted some unchallenged assumptions. A word I wish existed is what to call this imbalance. It’s a touch of normalcy bias, but moreso I’m stuck on how this imbalance isn’t a given, we just allow it to exist unnamed and unexplored.

What I’m getting at is in this minimum wage debate, there is already a minimum wage. Since we’re not debating creating one, but editing the current rate, I think we should be clearer that the “do nothing” side is also implicitly embracing the current rate. The “change” side has to justify where the new rate came from and what its effect will be. Why doesn’t the “do nothing” side have to defend the current rate as opposed to just attacking the proposed change?

The Congressional Budget Office produced estimates of job losses associated with raising the minimum wage. All three options were an increase in the minimum wage to $10, $12, and $15 compared to leaving it at $7.25. But why is $7.25 so great? Would the CBO produce estimates of job gains if we lowered the minimum wage? There are no Republicans clamoring not just to leave it at $7.25 but to lower it back to $5.15. Many Republicans actually believe we should abolish the minimum wage, but that’s been tangential to the discourse. All we’re debating is whether or not to raise it versus do nothing.

When detractors use memes of McDonald’s kiosks saying that minimum wage increases accelerate this, show them in response a picture of a backhoe. No one building a house today would think to just hire 10-12 people with shovels when you can rent a backhoe. The prevailing wages would say that it’s more effective to get the heavy equipment. Why couldn’t we lower wages and get these job killing backhoes out of use? It’s a silly argument and no one is making it, but when it comes to fast food we’re supposed to believe that it’s a given there should be human cashiers and kiosks are somehow bad. Wages aside, we know the backhoe is much faster and even at lower wages would still not be replaced by people again. Similarly, in restaurants kiosks tend to increase order size and order accuracy. They are here to stay whatever happens to the minimum wage.

All of this is to say we’re debating in a narrow lane of a specific change versus doing nothing as opposed to having a holistic debate about wages. We should identify that the opposition to a change gets an unfair advantage because they are never made to go on the offensive and actively defend the status quo, just tear down a potential change. This may sound like I’m supporting the increase to $15, but moreso I just want to hear someone explain why $7.25 is good as opposed to why $15 is bad.