- Raising the wages of my employees helped our business and the local economy.
- Millions of Americans are living in poverty while working full time.
- Congress must raise the minimum wage to $15 dollars an hour to ensure a swift economic recovery.
- John Driscoll is the CEO of CareCentrix.
- This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
- Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.
We can afford to raise the minimum wage. As part of his administration’s bold COVID-19 relief package, President Joe Biden has promised to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. The trickle-down approach to recovery championed by the previous administration failed our country and only led to further economic hardships for hard working Americans. If successfully enacted, a $15 an hour federal minimum wage would benefit not just workers, but also businesses and the economy. Why am I so sure?
Because my company tried it. It worked.
Conservatives quickly pounced on Biden’s proposal, arguing that a minimum wage of $15 would hurt small businesses and result in massive job losses, but these assertions are just untrue. At our company, CareCentrix, we froze the wages of the top 20 executives to help raise our company’s minimum wage to $15 an hour seven years ago, and good things followed. Productivity increased and we cut employee turnover in half. With our frontline employees finally able to focus on their jobs and not worrying about their bills, profits rose and everyone in my company benefitted.
Is CareCentrix considered a small business? If so let’s make that clear here. If not, we’ll have to add some additional info to argue that small businesses will not be harmed by a wage increase
My business is thriving because we recognized that paying our hard working entry level employees wages that increasingly left them unable to afford basic living expenses was morally and economically absurd.
The moral case for raising the minimum wage is as clear as it is tragic. At CareCentrix, we learned that one of our teammates was living out of her car to save on bills, while another entry-level employee needed to raise money from her peers to afford diapers. The more I learned about the harsh reality my workforce was facing by trying to take care of their families and balance their expenses on the current minimum wage, the clearer it became that a change was overdue.
Take those stories, multiply them by millions, and you’ll see a clear picture of what…
Read More: I gave my employees a $15 minimum wage. It didn’t destroy my business.