Reader's view: $15 minimum wage would benefit entire community

Did you know that for a typical family arrangement in Northeastern Minnesota - which is one full-time worker, one part-time worker and one child - both workers need jobs paying $15 an hour to secure basic needs and security? Basic needs include housing, food, health care, child care, transportation and taxes, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development’s (DEED’s) cost of living calculator.
For a single mother with two children? She would need a wage of $27.81 per hour to secure her family’s health and safety. And, frankly, there aren’t many of those jobs in the region.
Northeastern Minnesota has nearly 50,000 people employed in occupations with median wages below $15 an hour; that’s more than 33 percent of all jobs in the region. These occupations include food and service preparation, sales, personal care service, building and maintenance, and health care support. Not only are these prevalent jobs in our economy, they are the jobs employers right now are having difficulty filling, according to DEED’s job vacancy survey. They also are the jobs projected to grow or to have the most opportunity for employment in the future, according to DEED’s employment projections.
Alleviating the stresses that poverty places on working families would have tremendous impact throughout our communities, and I believe that a $15 minimum wage is an important and necessary economic policy to achieve this.
However, it would not cure all; there would be effects on our small-business community, which already is struggling. Its concerns deserve to be voiced and considered.
But ensuring that a job provides the opportunity to meet the basic needs of one’s family is critical to a successful economy.
Erik White
Duluth