Michael J. Lamson: Raising minimum wage past due

The side-by-side positioning of the two Points of View in the Sept. 10 N&O was informative.

In “Helping millennials launch careers,” Tom White described the Backpacks to Briefcases program, an initiative designed to help North Carolina college graduates jumpstart their careers, with $11 per hour internships and networking opportunities, in lieu of having them compete with the “horde of experienced dislocated workers” for low-paying jobs.

In “Support for higher wages is critical,” Michael De Los Santos described the pervasiveness of low-paying jobs in North Carolina. While it is hard to imagine that many of the 5 million manufacturing jobs lost by the U.S. since 2000 would come back anytime soon, it is even harder to imagine any of them coming back with middle-class salaries.

With that in mind, it was encouraging to see that polls released over Labor Day show that the majority of state voters support raising the current federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to something higher. Maybe $15 per hour would be too much of a stretch, initially.

However, it is probably long past time to admit that all N.C. workers – the working horde as a whole – deserve at least a double-digit hourly wage.

This story was originally published September 13, 2016 at 4:31 PM with the headline "Michael J. Lamson: Raising minimum wage past due."