A $15 Minimum Wage is a Win for Social Security.

I’m Jasmine Wigfall, Legislative Director of Social Security Works and today, we want to talk about why a $15 minimum wage is a win for everyone.

The federal minimum wage is only $7.25 an hour.

Think of it this way. A minimum wage worker, working full-time, for one year, only makes about $15,000.

That’s not enough to cover an average family’s basic necessities like housing, food, and health care.

At the same time, the United States is the wealthiest country in the world. But far too much of our wealth is concentrated within the top 1% of households. American workers are getting left behind because they are being underpaid for their work.

For over 50 years the minimum wage has not kept up with prices. Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would provide more economic security for millions of families. In fact, it would lift 1 million workers out of poverty.

Raising the minimum wage is also key to reducing the retirement income crisis. When workers, like you and me, receive higher wages, we also earn higher Social Security benefits. Higher wages empower us to provide for our own retirement security along with providing our families with increased disability and life insurance protection.

But raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour isn’t just about the 32 million workers who would receive higher pay. It’s a win for our entire nation.

Boosting the minimum wage would funnel over $100 billion a year into communities across the country beginning in 2025. It would also decrease taxpayer spending on anti-poverty programs. And it would generate over $130 billion for our Social Security system by 2035.

Congress must pass the $15 minimum wage as part of COVID relief. Doing so is not only popular, it also makes economic sense. Morally, it’s just the right thing to do.