An increase in minimum wage has become a trend for 23 states in the last two years and may eventually spread to Mississippi and other Southern states.
On Jan. 1, minimum wage will go up from $5.15 to as much as $7.63 in Washington and as little as $5.85 in West Virginia.
In 1996, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Ohio implemented a minimum wage increase for the first time, according to an article on stateline.org.
Max Stillman, manager of Southern Family Markets on Miss. Highway 12, said he is in favor of a minimum wage increase in Mississippi.
“It’s just more money for the company,” Stillman said. “If employers pay more, the employees spend more which will affect the state in a positive way, economically.”
Employees would favor the increase, but they would also have to pay more taxes, Stillman said.
“The majority of minimum wage workers in Starkville are still students, so they do not have to worry about paying taxes as much because they may still be dependents,” Stillman said.
Southern Family Markets is in a union contract, which means employees’ pay starts out at $5.70 per hour, and they receive pay raises every six months.
Biloxi’s Harrah’s Casino employee relations manager Karen Randall said a statewide minimum wage increase would be advantageous due to an increasing cost of living.
“I think minimum wage is too low with the cost of living, especially in this area,” Randall said. “Mississippi will most likely follow the other states with the increase, but it will probably not be until the surrounding Southern states make the increase, too.”
Randall said a minimum wage increase will affect the state’s economy, but it is hard to say if impact would be positive or negative because the state is economically unbalanced.
A minimum wage increase would affect employees positively, especially those who are victims of Hurricane Katrina, Randall said.
“Those impacted by Katrina will be more inclined to return to their jobs if they were paid more than before the storm,” she said. “Everything from housing to gas has gotten way more expensive, so getting paid more would definitely make their lives easier.”
Employees would not be affected in a major way from a minimum wage increase, Randall added.
“Job satisfaction won’t be reached until supervisors and managers treat their employees with respect. This will matter more to workers than being paid a little more.”
Joe Beavers, manager of McDonald’s at 817 Miss. Highway 12, is not in favor of a minimum wage increase.
“I think it would affect the business’s hiring, staff and prices in a negative way,” Beavers said. “We have a certain budget to maintain, and it would raise prices and create unemployment.”
On a short term basis, a minimum wage increase would give employees a more positive outlook on their jobs simply because they would be getting paid more, Beavers said.
However, it would be negative in the long run because it would make their jobs harder, he added.
McDonald’s employees receive raises on an individual basis, so many are getting paid more than minimum wage anyway, Beaver said.
“I think it’ll eventually happen because if one state makes a change, slowly the whole country will change, too.”