Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

Behind The Big Boom

Just about every state in the U.S. is discovering that unexpected riches are pouring into its treasury. As a consequence, they are quickly catching up with many neglected chores like bringing public roads up to date, doing the same for schools and other public buildings and even putting goodly sums away in savings accounts for a rainy day.

While the public media have given this joyous development a good bit of attention, they seem to have failed to raise and answer an obvious question: Namely, why, of a sudden, do the states suddenly find their pockets overstuffed with cash?

In fact, quite the opposite might have been expected. Congress has enacted recent legislation that reduced taxes for small business. That should have deprived the states of their usual income from this source.

This concession to small businesses was part of a much larger bit of legislation that was aimed at bringing the national minimum wage up to date. For a painful period of 10 years, the national minimum wage was unchanged. The freeze began early in the Clinton administration, when the Republicans won control of Congress. The GOP’s opposition to a federal minimum wage dates back to its origin in 1938.

When the Democrats regained control of Congress, bringing the minimum wage up to date was a top priority. This meant a wage increase for several million workers. In addition, more than a dozen states have enacted minimum wage laws paying more than the federal minimum.

The American economy is a market economy. The combined effect of the federal legislation plus that of the separate states has expanded the American market with multibillions of dollars.

In short, we now seem to be getting a maximum return for our “minimum” effort.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version