Michigan jumped on the band wagon and raised the minimum wage at the beginning of the month.On Monday, Sept. 1, rates went up from $7.40 per hour to $8.15 an hour following legislation signed by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder in May 2014.
According to whitehouse.gov, “raising the minimum wage nationwide will increase earnings for millions of workers, and boost the bottom lines of businesses across the country.”
That’s all fine and dandy, but what about the workers who had been just barely above minimum wage prior to the legislation?
Let’s say an employee is making $8.20 an hour. That’s $0.80 more than the current minimum wage. In the case of student employees on campus, the higher paid jobs generally include positions that are more difficult than minimum wage positions.
That’s our case here at the office.
A number of members of our editorial staff make $8.15 an hour. And it may not be so apparent, but our staff puts in a lot of work during the week.
We are all required to interview sources, write stories, take care of edits, lay out pages on inDesign, stay late on production nights Wednesday evenings, post to social media sites and finally, meet Thursday evenings to discuss our budget plans for news content and to critique our paper from the week.
We love our jobs. We love the experiences we are getting here. We love the atmosphere and the people we’ve met.
But we also know we put in a lot of hard work, and it’s difficult to watch the minimum wage go up when our wages will remain the same.
This goes for all students on campus who are putting in the time and the effort in jobs that require a bit more work than entry-level.
How is it fair to students on campus who had higher paying jobs in accordance with the position requirements, to raise minimum wage?
We don’t have it in our budget to raise the wages of our editors, so the editors who received $8.15 per hour prior to the passing of the legislation, are now receiving the same pay as people who may just be starting jobs at minimum wage.
This also affects people across the state with skilled jobs that require a lot of work and knowledge. Everyone should be able to make a living wage, but where’s the increase for them?
How do we compensate those who have higher demanding jobs?
We understand, working for pay over $8 an hour is great, compared to what it was before.
However, it is unfortunate for students and Michigan residents in working positions that are more difficult than some of the other entry-level positions.