Solvency – AT: $15 not enough

David Cooper 19 (director of the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN)), “Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would lift pay for nearly 40 million workers,” 02/05/2019, Economic Policy Institute, https://www.epi.org/publication/raising-the-federal-minimum-wage-to-15-by-2024-would-lift-pay-for-nearly-40-million-workers/#:~:text=Gradually%20raising%20the%20minimum%20wage,a%20raise%20of%2020.9%20percent.

This report finds that:

Raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would undo the erosion of the value of the real minimum wage that began primarily in the 1980s. In fact, by 2021, for the first time in over 50 years, the federal minimum wage would exceed its historical inflation-adjusted high point, set in 1968.

Gradually raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would directly lift the wages of 28.1 million workers. The average directly affected worker who works all year would receive a $3,900 increase in annual wage income—equal to a raise of 20.9 percent. Another 11.6 million workers would benefit from a spillover effect as employers raise wages of workers making more than $15 in order to attract and retain employees.

All told, raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would directly or indirectly lift wages for 39.7 million workers, 26.6 percent of the wage-earning workforce.