Survey: Employers support raising the minimum wage

Dive Brief:

According to a new CareerBuilder survey, 64% of employers believe the minimum wage should be increased in their state, up from 62% last year.
The national online survey, conducted on behalf of CareerBuilder by Harris Poll between May 14 and June 3, 2015, included a representative sample of 2,321 full-time hiring and human resource managers and 3,039 full-time workers in the private sector across industries and company sizes.
While nearly 1 in 5 of all workers (19%) said they couldn't make ends meet every month in the last year, workers who hold or have held minimum wage jobs were much more prone to experience financial difficulties.

Dive Insight:

Twenty-six percent of employers said they plan to hire minimum wage workers this year. Only 6% of all employers believe the federal minimum wage ($7.25 per hour) is fair. The majority (61%) felt a fair minimum wage is $10 or more per hour, up from 54% last year; and 11% said a fair minimum wage is $15 or more per hour, up from 7% last year.

Of workers who currently have a minimum wage job or have held one in the past, 65% said they couldn't make ends meet; 49% said they had to work more than one job to make ends meet.

But it's not just minimum wage workers who are struggling. Nineteen percent of workers at all salary levels were not able to make ends meet during the past year. Sixty-five percent of all workers say they're in debt and while most say it's manageable, it should be noted that 16% of workers ages 25-34 still live with their parents. 18% of all workers have reduced their 401k contribution and/or personal savings in the last year and 28% don't set aside any savings each month.

"Americans' wages have been stuck in a slow-growth pattern since the recession," said Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder. "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."