This story was produced in association with the Ravitch Fiscal Reporting Program at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York.
Many workers across the country started the year on a raise. The minimum wage rose in a total of 20 states.
But not in Georgia.
When it comes to the minimum wage, Georgia is one of several southern states that have stuck to a different approach.
The southern strategy
Georgia’s minimum wage raises the eyebrows of workers’ lawyers.
“I’ve spoken to people over the years who have asked me why Georgia is still $ 5.15,” said Tsedeye Gebreselassie of the National Employment Law Project.
The minimum wage in Georgia has been US $ 5.15 an hour under state law for more than 15 years.
The wage does not affect most workers as it is below the federal minimum of $ 7.25. Even so, it is not uncommon in the south to keep a low minimum wage on the books.
A handful of states in the region, including Louisiana and Mississippi, have no minimum wage laws at all.
According to James Cobb, a history professor at the University of Georgia, the guidelines represent a longstanding strategy of the South.
“Symbolic is the obligation to the interests of the employer over those of the employee,” said Cobb.
He said the south has been using cheap labor to attract businesses since the civil war. And in the 1930s, when a federal minimum wage was proposed, the southern states fought against it.
“They even saw it as an attempt to sabotage economic development in the south,” Cobb said.
Years after losing that battle, he said the belief that cheap workers create the best business climate persists.
The lowest rung
Kyle Wingfield, president of the Conservative Georgia Public Policy Foundation, disagreed that labor laws in southern states like Georgia give companies priority over workers.
“The real minimum wage is zero,” he said. “In other words, if you don’t get a job, you won’t get paid.”
Wingfield said fewer restrictions allow companies to hire more people.
He said the minimum wage is only the bottom step of a ladder – only about 2 percent of Georgian workers earn the rate – so it should be accessible to as many people as possible.
“We want to make sure people get along and then have the opportunity to move up,” he said.
Gebreselassie, the labor attorney, said states should be able to achieve both: Jobs with wage workers can go on.
However, she admits that bringing Georgia’s minimum wage to what is known as a livable wage will be a major political boost.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has calculated that a single adult in Fulton County would have to make more than $ 12 an hour to pay for daily expenses like food and childcare.
Gebreselassie said the state had fallen far behind at $ 5.15.
“There has to be a lot of catching up to do, it will be a big challenge,” she said.
