Last week, the Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders took note of their struggles. With a resolution supporting a $15 statewide minimum wage, the lawmakers joined their counterparts in Essex and Hudson counties in a campaign to upgrade the lives of the state's rapidly dwindling middle class.
Nobody wakes up one morning and says, "I hope I get a job that pays minimum wages when I grow up!"
But in today's economy, many workers - most of them industrious, well-meaning men and women - find themselves cashing a weekly paycheck that barely stretches to cover food, medical expenses and housing.
Last week, the Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders took note of their struggles. With a resolution supporting a $15 statewide minimum wage, the lawmakers joined their counterparts in Essex and Hudson counties in a campaign to upgrade the lives of the state's rapidly dwindling middle class.
On the municipal level, Jersey City has also signed on.
They're all part of an initiative led by New Jersey Working Families Alliance, which hopes to spread the word that the state's current minimum wage of $8.38 an hour is too low to sustain a family.
It's a message that resonates.
The typical minimum-wage earner is not a high school student flipping burgers on evenings and weekends to pay for the privilege of hearing Justin Bieber, Drake or Adele.
The U.S. Labor Department said recently that 89 percent of those who would benefit from a federal increase to $12 an hour are age 20 or older. Some 56 percent are women.
It's also a myth that raising the minimum wage will cause people to lose their jobs.
Seven Nobel Prize-winners and 600 economists told President Obama in a letter that the weight of evidence shows that "increases in the minimum wage have had little or no negative effect on the employment of minimum-wage workers, even during times of weakness in the labor market."
To the contrary, the experts said: Putting more dollars in workers' pockets could stimulate the economy as low-wage earners spend their additional income, boosting the demand for goods and services.
A wage hike is also in the employer's interest, studies show. Higher wages tend to reduce employee turnover, so it ultimately costs the employer less in hiring and training costs.
The county freeholders are smart to recognize that the "Fight for $15" campaign that began gaining traction among fast-food workers in New York City three years ago is equally relevant on this side of the Hudson River.
Until New Jersey's employment gets back on a solid footing - which shows little sign of happening as Gov. Chris Christie chases his presidential dreams- it makes good fiscal sense to shore up the safety net under our lowest-paid workers.