2021-04-29
44 分钟Backers of a $15 federal wage say it’s a no-brainer if you want to fight poverty. Critics say it’s a blunt instrument that leads to job loss. Even the economists can’t agree! We talk to a bunch of them — and a U.S. Senator — to sort it out, and learn there’s a much bigger problem to worry about.
In the US, the official poverty threshold is $26,500 in annual income for a family of four.
For a one person household, it's just under $13,000.
In 2019, the official poverty rate in the US was 10.5%, down from 11.8% just a year earlier.
In fact, this was the fifth annual drop in a row, and the 2019 figure was the lowest on record since 1959, when the poverty rate was first measured.
But once the 2020 numbers come in, those gains are due to be reversed.
A pandemic will do that.
A series of government interventions have blunted the hit for many people.
Still, it's estimated that some 8 million Americans have slipped below the poverty line during the pandemic.
As you likely know, higher income workers were generally hit less hard by the pandemic, as a lot of their jobs could be done remotely.
For lower income workers, there was a double whammy.
More lost jobs and a higher likelihood of getting Covid-19.
So with this pandemic induced poverty spike, and with Democrats now running the federal government, there's been a surge of interest in one of the most popular policies to fight poverty, a higher minimum wage.
Here in Congress, there is a big movement to raise the minimum wage, and it will pass the House of Representatives cause that's a majoritarian body.
The question is, can it pass in the Senate?
That's Cory Booker.
I am one of the two senators from the state of New Jersey.
Booker is one of several Democrats promoting the Raise the Wage act of 2021.
It calls for the federal minimum wage to more than double over the next four years to dollar 15 an hour.
I just think that this is a basic fairness proposition in America.
Do we want people who work a full time job and catch extra shifts where they can to be below the poverty line?