Minimum Wage

The topic this week is minimum wage. The information in this post comes primarily from the debate held on February 6th, in the second video, starting at 4:46, and ending at 21:00. I supplemented this with information from each candidate’s website, where possible.

Everyone says that minimum wage is too low. Even the business-friendly candidates say that it is too low. The table below sums up each candidate’s position. When there was nuance to their answer, it will be more purple. When their answer was more liberal, it will be more blue, and more conservative will be more red. Answers which showed a lack of knowledge or understanding will be more gray.

Name	Index to Inflation?	Raise?	Lower costs of living?	Business Friendly?
Chandler	Yes, to CPI	Yes	Yes	Yes
Das	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Trahan	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
L’Italien	Yes	Yes	Yes	No.
Littlefield	Yes, not to CPI	Yes	Yes	No.
Matias	Yes	Yes	Yes	No.
St. John	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes.
Ryan	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes.
Gifford	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Golder	Yes, not to CPI	Yes	Yes	No.
Koh	Yes, to productivity	Yes	Yes	Yes.
Malone	Yes, to housing	Yes	Yes	No.

Alexandra Chandler thought she sounded smart when she said that minimum wage should be indexed to CPI. She didn’t specify which CPI, and CPI is just another word for inflation. She was also the only person who specifically said that we should expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, and then she mentioned apprenticeships.

Abhijit "Beej" Das pointed out that in addition to raising minimum wage and indexing it, we also need to keep the other costs of living down.

Lori Trahan also talked about affordable daycare and affordable healthcare to help reduce the income inequality gap.

Barbara L’Italien pointed out that Massachusetts raises minimum wage regularly. In fact, though she didn’t point this out, Massachusetts has raised minimum wage faster than inflation in the past 20 years. She gets some of the credit for her votes to increase the minimum wage here.
Unfortunately, she then said that we should index Social Security to inflation, not realizing that Social Security is already indexed to chain CPI. This shows a lack of understanding of Social Security on her part.

Patrick Littlefield doesn’t think that you should index minimum wage to inflation.

Juana Matias responded to this vehemently, and also pointed out that we need to address educational achievement gaps.

Keith St. John points out that while a $17.50 minimum wage in Massachusetts makes sense, it would be crippling in other parts of the country where living expenses are significantly lower.

Terry Ryan focused on his experience with the Small Business Association, pointing out that we should also give tax breaks to small businesses to counterbalance the minimum wage.

Rufus Gifford pointed out that we need to fix the relationship between business and labor, so that employers value workers more.

Leonard Golder wants to raise the national minimum wage to $15 first, before indexing it to something, and pointed out that the Chain CPI used for Social Security COLA adjustments does not grow fast enough. He recommended using Core CPI instead, despite the volatility of Core CPI.

Dan Koh pointed out that worker productivity needs to be reflected in worker wages

Bopha Malone tried to tie this to homelessness. She also wants to help families with childcare and transportation.

Steve Kerrigan has dropped out of the race.

Starting next week, I will no longer be covering any candidate who does not have a website. If you are running for congress, you need a website, or you aren't actually serious. Also, covering the views of 13 very similar candidates is a lot harder and a lot more time intensive than covering the views of 3 very different candidates in my previous blog. (During the 2016 election, I covered the candidacies of Clinton, Johnson, and Stein, the three serious candidates for president.)

The topic next week will be education policy.