Careful with the comments, Council Members

Peter Fisher of the Iowa Policy Project took a look recently at what a larger increase — to $15 — would do in Johnson and Linn counties. That report is here.

Separately, we have an Iowa Policy Project fact sheet available here on how Iowans statewide would be affected by an increase to $10.10, which is the level recently established by Johnson County supervisors to be phased in by 2017.

Findings of that research contradicts many comments by council members in Solon. For example, the minimum wage clearly is not, as one suggests, “for kids to go out and have some pocket money, that sort of stuff.”

In fact, the wage has been held so low for so long that it has become is part of a larger low-wage climate in our state, so that parents account for 1 in 5 of those who would be helped by a $10.10 minimum statewide. And almost half — 46 percent — of total family income in homes with a worker making less than $10.10 an hour comes from that job.

One council member ignores a lot of people in Iowa, very likely many of his own neighbors, when he suggests this is all about part-time work. More than 4 in 10 — 43 percent — of the workers who would benefit from an increase to $10.10 in Iowa are working full time.

Finally, an observation by a third council member is particularly noteworthy — that local restaurants are having trouble finding help. Wonder why that would be? Something about low pay, perhaps? How many more would be willing to work if pay were increased? How many more would be patronizing local businesses because they could afford to do so?

It is certainly up to the good people of Solon and their leaders to decide whether to go along with the new Johnson County ordinance, and by doing so to put pressure on the state to raise the state minimum. The latter, by the way, is what some council members are quoted that what they want to see: a statewide increase. Yet with no local pressure, is that really the message they send to state lawmakers who are holding Iowa’s minimum below that of 29 other states?

Whichever way they decide, however, they should be making the decision with good information, not discredited myths.