by Shawn Nowlin
When Jennifer Carper, 57, was growing up in Roanoke County, she says that she could enjoy a date night with her now husband, visit the grocery store to fill up her refrigerator and purchase a brand-new outfit all for under $75. Today, that same sequence of events would cost exponentially more.
“It astounds me just how expensive things are today. Critics of raising the minimum wage often point to higher labor costs and massive job losses as a deterrent for progress,” she said. “At the end of the day, the pros of increasing the wage far outweigh any cons, regardless of how good the talking points sound on paper.”
Before the Obama Administration, the federal minimum wage was $5.15 per hour. To put it into context, that means if a person worked every single workday available to them year-round, they brought home just $10,506 before taxes.
After a multi-year battle that involved protests and lawsuits, Virginia will soon raise its minimum wage. Starting January 1, millions of employees across the Commonwealth will be paid $12.41 an hour. While the slight increase is an improvement, for the overwhelming percentage of individuals, that is simply not sufficient.
As a byproduct of a bill passing through the 2020 Virginia General Assembly mandating the Commonwealth’s minimum wage be adjusted for inflation, last March, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) vetoed bills that would have raised the minimum wage by 2026 to $15 per hour.
“I believe that business owners should have the bottom line in deciding when to increase wages,” he said at the time. “Implementing a $15-per-hour minimum wage mandate may not impact all Virginians where economic conditions create a higher cost of living. Contrary to ensuring higher compensation, such a substantial increase will significantly raise business operational costs.”
Gani Stevenson is not surprised that despite passing both the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates, Youngkin still vetoed it.
“He has a net worth of what, $440 million? How could he possibly know what it’s like to have no choice but to make $100 last for two weeks? Until I got a job promotion, I had to make an annual salary of $14,000 work for a family of four,” Stevenson said. “If the federal minimum wage indeed matched inflation, people would be bringing home close to 25 dollars an hour.”
While minimum wage policy is one of the most fundamental questions of economics, there is no evidence to suggest that things will improve once Trump takes office.
“If the Democrats take control of Congress in the 2026 midterms, that will get this country back on the right track. Only time will tell if that happens or not,” Stevenson said.
