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Tuesday, September 20, 2005

24,200 Earn Minimum Here

By Olivier Uyttebrouck
Journal Staff Writer
    About 24,200 Albuquerque workers make less than $7.50 an hour and would receive a raise if voters enact that figure as a citywide minimum wage, an economist said Monday.
    Workers who would be affected by the proposed minimum wage average 31 years old, said Robert Pollin, a University of Massachusetts at Amherst professor.
    Pollin announced his findings at the University of New Mexico at a forum organized by supporters of the minimum-wage initiative, which will be on the Oct. 4 ballot.
    The initiative would set the city's minimum wage at $7.50 an hour for regular employees and $4.50 for tipped employees. The federal and state minimum wage is $5.15 an hour.
    Pollin said his findings, drawn from U.S. Department of Labor data, refute the argument that most low-wage workers are teens.
    Of workers who earn less than $7.50 an hour, 27 percent are ages 15-19 and 73 percent are 20 or older, he said.
    "Most of the people who will get these higher wages are on their longterm employment trajectory," he told about 40 people who attended.
    Albuquerque businesses would pay an additional $30 million a year to raise all wages to $7.50 an hour, he said.
    Pollin said other characteristics of those who earn less than $7.50 an hour:
   

They earn an average of $6.55 an hour, meaning they would receive an average raise of 95 cents.
   

Of workers who would be affected by the increase, 40 percent work in restaurants and hotels and 21 percent in retail.
    Pollin predicted a higher minimum wage would have a "ripple effect" that would raise wages for workers who earn slightly more than $7.50 an hour. In all, 43,000 workers would get some pay raise if the measure is approved, he estimated.