Speak Up: Minimum wage proposal draws reaction

The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009. Is it time for an increase? If so, what is an appropriate level? Should it be a living wage or something more modest? Those questions plague policymakers, business owners, employees and others in the nation’s capital and around the country.

• We don’t pay anyone lower than that, but some jobs don’t rate it, and all you’re going to do is the people we pay $18-$28 an hour are going to say if a burger-flipper at McDonald’s can get $15 an hour, we should get $24-$32. Everything will cost more, and in the end, you accomplished nothing. — Steven Robert

• Yep, and then, where’s the value in a good education (college or trades)? — Howard Gaines III

• Have you ever worked a shift during mealtimes at a fast-food restaurant? — Dale Bert

• D.C.’s minimum wage is already $15 an hour. Happy Meals are not $17 there; in fact, they are the same price plus/minus tax as the rest of the country. — Eddie Curley

• Your job at a fast-food restaurant is not worth paying $15 for. Same thing for gas stations, movie theaters, clothing stores, etc. — Michael Campbell

• Look at all the poor people fighting over the crumbs. — Tommy Bou

• If minimum wage tracked with inflation and productivity, it would be $24 an hour. — Lauren Clements

• Half our vehicles at our HVAC company sit in the parking lot because there is a huge worker shortage. Every area is different for pay, but I live in an area where you can buy a decent house for $200,000, and those trucks would pay $60,000-$80,000 a year for the person in them. I see signs everywhere about jobs offering $16-$18 an hour because they can’t find help either to fill their jobs. I think minimum wage is too low and should be in the $10-$12 range, personally. But if we hire a kid with no experience to train at work, he will cost us money, as someone will have to not be doing something to show him or her what to do. That’s not worth more than $12-$13 per hour to start. Once they are able to do things, they can get to $15-$16. Once they can work unsupervised, they can hit $18-$20. Once they can run jobs, they can hit $24-$28. But making everyone get $15 no matter what they do or how hard they work is a joke. If you live in an area where anyone is offering you $7.50 an hour, and that’s all the work you can find, you should move because in south-central Pennsylvania, where I live, there are jobs everywhere that pay double that. — Steven Robert

• It’s just causing a domino effect. If it’s costing more money to make a product, the prices are going to go up. Everything we pay for is just going to escalate, so what’s the purpose of doing it to begin with. — Haley Mills Morris

• So working full time and not earning a living wage is OK for you? — Julie Penny-Stowell

• If you are working full time and not making enough to live on, you need to look for another job. — Charlie Harper

• How’s that trickle-down economics working, since the rich got a huge tax break? How many new jobs did they create!?— Douglas Mastin