In a Monday editorial, the New York Times scolds President-elect Trump for not supporting an extreme increase in the federal minimum wage. “State and local raises, while laudable, are not a substitute for a federal raise,” the editorial board writes.
While the editorial acknowledges that states and localities are seemingly doing more than ever to raise their minimum wages above the federal status quo, it fails to acknowledge the reason why these changes are better than a one-size-fits-all federal minimum wage: The cost of living varies widely across the country.
Compared to a median-cost town, say Salt Lake City, $100 is really only worth $81 in Honolulu, thanks to the high cost of living there. Compare that to rural areas of Alabama, where the cost of living is so low that $100 is really worth $120.
The New York Times editorial seems to be less concerned about impoverished workers in liberal states and more concerned with impoverished workers in conservative southern states. “One problem with this state-by-state approach is that poverty is perpetuated in large areas, especially in the South, with its historical antipathy to labor protections.”
These states generally have some of the lowest costs of living in the country. On the minimum wage, they vote like it. Every southern state has a Republican governor and legislature controlled by Republicans (with the exception of Louisiana and Virginia, which have Democratic governors).
If voters in the South really wanted a minimum wage hike, they probably would have voted for the party that was more likely to give it to them.
More importantly, when southern voters did raise the minimum wage, they set it according to local cost of living rather than Manhattan cost of living. Arkansas voters in 2014 hiked their state minimum, by steps, to $8.50 an hour, which is probably still not high enough to please the Gray Lady’s editors.
Although the New York Times might not like it, state and local governments collectively know their constituents better than the federal government collectively knows the country. A one-size-fits-all minimum wage for the entire country is bad policy that assumes the entire country has the same economic situation.
At least on the federal level, the New York Times editorial board should heed the words their counterparts wrote in January 1987: “The Right Minimum Wage: $0.00.”
Jason Russell is the contributors editor for the Washington Examiner.
