New Jersey is once again considering raising the minimum wage, this time to $15 per hour.
Democratic leaders in the state Legislature will try again to win support for raising New Jersey's minimum hourly wage to $15 over five years - and they're coming into their crusade armed with compelling figures on how many people will be affected positively if the measure gains traction.
A hike such as the one under consideration would benefit one in four workers in the state, the overwhelming majority of them at least 20 years old.
The wage boost would affect 892,000 workers, 61 percent of whom work full time and more than a quarter of whom are parents.
The statistics come from the New Jersey Policy Perspective, a left-leaning research organization which released the labor analysis data to buttress arguments in favor of the bill that Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto are sponsoring.
Nearly 1M in would benefit from increase
We've been down this road before.
The last time the minimum wage was raised - from $7.25 to $8.38 - the gain was a paltry buck and 13 cents, achieved only by doing an end run around a governor who saw nothing wrong with many in his state's workforce living in poverty or near-poverty.
We, on the other hand, find it not only wrong, but appalling.
Moreover, we would challenge Gov. Christie, who has vetoed a minimum-wage hike bill before, to live for a week on a paycheck of $8.38 an hour.
Heck, we challenge him to do so for a day.
N.J.'s workers deserve a wage hike
Business leaders who cry foul at the idea of paying their workers a living wage say it would eat into their profits, forcing them to reduce their workforce and raise prices on their products or services. But multiple studies have proven this to be a fallacy.
Don't take our word for it. Take the word of the seven Nobel Prize-winners and 600 economists who endorsed a higher minimum wage in a letter to President Obama.
The stark reality is that it's very expensive to live here.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimated last year that you'd have to work 100 hours at the state's current minimum wage to pay rent on a one-bedroom apartment.
Meanwhile, you'd also be struggling to put food on your table and clothes on your children, not to mention shelling out for medicines to keep yourself healthy and gas (or bus fare) to get yourself to work every day.
Sweeney and Prieto swear that if their measure falls short in the Legislature or if Christie doesn't see fit to sign it, they'll take the issue to the voters in the form of a constitutional amendment.
Shame on us if it comes to that.