Yet it’s “profoundly wrong” to characterize the minimum wage increase to $15 per hour as only benefitting teenagers, says Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist and director of policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
That’s because there are many full-time, adult hourly employees who are earning just above the minimum wage, but still earning less than $15 per hour. Only about 1 in 10 of those who would benefit from a $15 minimum wage are teenagers, Shierholz says.
In fact, EPI’s research shows that more than half of those who would benefit from a $15 federal minimum wage are workers between 25 and 54, the majority of whom are women. Over a quarter of those workers have children.
“Raising the minimum wage is long overdue. Workers today who are paid the current federal minimum wage are paid more 30% less in inflation-adjusted terms than their counterparts were paid 53 years ago,” Shierholz says.