We must do better for American workers

For decades, everyday hardworking Americans have been falling behind. Our nation should reward hard work with success and security, but in reality, we do not.

We can start by looking at wages. Per FDR, the minimum wage was “more than a bare subsistence level…the wages of decent living.“ Today’s federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour fails to provide a bare subsistence level, much less a decent living. Fortunately, 30 states (including Delaware) have established a higher minimum wage than the federal one, currently ranging from $8.75 to $13.69 per hour.

Delaware will reach a minimum wage of $15 per hour in 2025. However, $15 per hour is not a living wage today and will be even less so in four years. Per World Population Review, America ranks 17th in the world in national minimum wages. In the richest country in the history of the world with by far the world’s highest GDP, we should be No. 1 in minimum wage instead of trailing behind 16 other modern nations.

Not that many decades ago, in two-parent homes, one parent could work outside the home and provide nicely for their family. But today, to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment in Delaware, full-time workers must earn $22.52 per hour, more than twice the current minimum wage. According to the Pew Research Center, real wages have barely budged in 40 years. Meanwhile, as examples of the skyrocketing cost of living, Americans spend twice as much on healthcare as they did in the 1980s, and in just the last decade, University of Delaware tuition has increased by 40 percent.

Also, American companies continue to slash benefits. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation/LA Times Study, since 2010, workers’ wages grew 27 percent  while health insurance premiums and deductibles swelled by 55 percent and 111 percent respectively. And remember things called pensions? The 401(k) plans were intended to supplement them, not replace them. But as of 2017, only 16 percent of Fortune 500 companies offered pensions versus 59 percent in 1998. As recently reported by CNN Money, “The few employers that still offer traditional pensions…have been working overtime…to either reduce or eliminate their plans.”

America is the only modern nation not to guarantee its workers paid vacation, holidays, sick leave and parental leave. Of 194 nations, 187 guarantee paid vacation time for employees, ranging from five to 50 days annually. Only seven nations fail to guarantee paid vacation time. America is in the company of Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau and Tonga. Of 194 nations, 146 guarantee paid holidays for employees, ranging from three to 30 days annually - but not America. With paid vacation and holidays combined, 187 nations guarantee one or both, ranging from five to 66 days annually. America guarantees neither.

According to a recent study, over 20 million Americans regularly report to work ill because they do not have paid sick time.

If the current pandemic has taught us anything, we know we do not want employees reporting to work sick, especially when the workers least likely to receive paid sick time have the most contact with the public, like workers in grocery and retail stores and restaurants. Unlike 179 other nations, America does not guarantee paid sick time for workers. And unlike 139 other nations, America does not guarantee paid parental leave. (Those 139 nations guarantee between 30 days and 26 weeks of paid parental leave, with an average of 13.2 weeks.)

As an activist and now as a state representative, I am proud to fight for Delaware workers. Earlier this year, I worked to improve and pass the minimum wage increase bill and to repeal Delaware‘s youth and training wage, with success on both fronts. I cosponsored other successful pieces of legislation helping Delaware workers. In January, I will introduce legislation mandating that Delaware employers offer employees a minimum amount of paid sick time annually - as do 179 nations, 12 other states, the nation’s capital, Puerto Rico, and over 30 localities. We need elected officials who stand up for everyday hardworking Delawareans and who do not accept campaign contributions that would influence them to do otherwise. I am proud to be one such elected official.