Minimum Wage Agenda Emergence

The issue on minimum wage has been a hot topic in the Obama’s administration, raised during both the 2013 and 2014 State of the Union addresses. The proposal to raise minimum wage from the current hourly rate of $7.25 to $9 (in 2013) and $10.10 (in 2014) presented an urgency to mitigating the ever widening income inequality within the United States.

A problem stream as defined by Kingdon, the issue on income inequality has been widely debated from time to time. Whilst other measures such as tax credits and relief were introduced, they did not effectively reduce the widening income gap. As reported by the Economist, the United States has the highest GINI coefficient compared to all other highly developed countries. The inequality was worse in certain states, many of which were Democrats-held districts, as reported by the Atlantic. The situation is a stark difference from the promises made by President Obama during his campaign where he wanted to uplift the middle-income, when many workers earning the current minimum wage were living below the poverty line. Many Americans recognized that income inequality is a problem, somewhat of a National Mood as described by Kingdon, and are in support of raising the minimum wage.

Conversely, the income inequality issue could potentially be detrimental to the political standing of the Democrats, as they might be seen by the constituents to be ineffective in delivering their promises. This provided a political will amongst Democratic leaders to pursue a solution to the problem stream.

When President Obama discussed the issue on raising minimum wage as a policy solution in his 2013 State of the Union address, he effectively placed the issue on the governmental agenda. This prompted debates between the two parties on the pros and cons of this upward revision. Whilst the situation remains dire, the two parties seemed to remain locked in horns. With the 2014 House of Representative elections looming, there is a coupling of the problem stream with the political stream that is pressing President Obama and the Democrats to act on this. The issue was deemed urgent enough that President Obama had raised the minimum wage for federal contract workers amidst the legislator inactivity, as reported by Digital Journal.

Following President Obama’s 2014 State of the Union address reiterating the need to raise minimum wages, political entrepreneurs such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, had taken to task to draft the minimum wage bill and upgrade it to the Decision agenda. The 2014 address, together with the coupling of the problem and political streams, presented a policy window to quickly table the bill, despite reports that the Democrat leaders had yet to receive sufficient support from the Republicans to pass the bill. Despite so, the Politico reported that the Senate is expected to vote on Harkin’s bill as early as this week.

Whilst it is still uncertain if the bill would pass the Senate, the debate on minimum wage revision presented a policy alternative to mitigate the income inequality issue. Equally uncertain was whether the bill would remain on the governmental and decision agenda after the 2014 House of Representative elections. From my research, I recognized that there are many policy alternatives, levers and platforms (including state-level minimum wage reviews) which legislators could and had used. Raising minimum wage is but only one solution to tackling the issue on income inequality, albeit a direct one that could instil a “feel good” to employees, even when it is uncertain of the actual net pay increase or effectiveness in overcoming income inequality.

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