CHICAGO – A clear majority of employers continue to believe that raising the minimum wage in their state is a good idea, according to a new survey by CareerBuilder.
Sixty-four percent of employers support raising the minimum wage in their state, up from 62 percent last year.
The largest percentage of employers (27 percent) believed that $10 per hour was a fair wage while 24 percent thought $8-$9 per hour was fair. Sixty-one percent of employers thought the minimum wage should be $10 per hour or more. Only 6 percent of employers thought the federal minimum wage of $7.25 was fair. Twenty-Six percent of employers surveyed said they planned to hire minimum wage workers.
“Americans’ wages have been stuck in a slow-growth pattern since the recession,” said Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder in a prelease. “As big name brands take measures to increase pay for minimum wage workers and the market overall grows more competitive for skilled labor, employers are going to start feeling more wage pressure when trying to attract and retain employees at all levels within the organization.”
Of workers who currently have a minimum wage job or have held one in the past, 65 percent said they couldn’t make ends meet while 49 percent said they had to work more than one job to make ends meet.
While the struggles are most prominent at the lower income levels, 19 percent of workers at all salary levels were not able to make ends meet during the past year. A majority, 65 percent, of workers said they were in debt and 18 percent reduced their 401K contributions. Another 28 percent of workers don’t set aside any savings each month.
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