Opinion: Higher wage will make NJ’s low-income households safer, healthier

New Jersey’s women and working families just earned a hard-fought victory.

Gov. Phil Murphy recently announced an agreement with legislative leaders to raise the minimum wage for most workers to $15 an hour by 2024. This will bring financial relief to low-income families and strengthen the state’s economy over time. It’s also an important step toward making households safer and healthier.

Although New Jersey’s overall unemployment rate has gone down, the number of families confronting poverty and economic hardship is relatively stuck. Paychecks are not meeting basic needs. When you cannot afford the bills, food, and rent, you are not likely to be planning — or saving — for the future, either.

African-American, Latinos, and women comprise a disproportionate share of the low-wage workforce in the Garden State. They often face related challenges, such as interpersonal and neighborhood violence and poorer health outcomes.

Ironically, many low-wage women work in jobs that involve caring for others — child care workers, home health aides, nursing assistants — but often allow little room to care for themselves or their family. If you are a low-wage earner and a mother, you are likely in survival mode, focused on keeping your children safe and healthy and fed while you juggle work and making enough to pay the bills. This is no small feat for those who have resources and social supports. Imagine having none and making everything work on less than $15 an hour. 

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An adequate income not only covers basic needs, but it allows low-wage mothers to make healthy and safe choices for themselves and their children. A research study published last year by the academic journal Children and Youth Services Review found raising the minimum wage improves child welfare, particularly for young children.

We know that mothers are willing to sacrifice to put a roof over their children’s heads and food on the table. Some women even choose unsafe relationships over poverty and homelessness — putting themselves in harm’s way to give their kids a better life.

In research conducted here at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, interviews with domestic violence survivors in New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York revealed that women who had escaped violent relationships would consider returning to their abusers if they could not support themselves financially.

In the words of one woman living in an emergency shelter and concerned about finding an apartment and a job, “I’m going to be scared to go out there, and unfortunately I hope this isn’t me, and I don’t think it will [be], but most people are returning back to an abusive relationship.”

At the current minimum wage of $8.85, a full-time worker earns $354 a week, $1,500 a month, and $18,408 annually before taxes and other paycheck deductions. At $15 an hour, that same worker will earn $600 a week, $2,600 a month, and $31,200 annually. While not a great salary by any measure, it puts the worker and her family in a much more financially stable place.

Keep in mind, the United Way’s recommended “household survival budget” in New Jersey is $26,640 for a single adult and $74,748 for a family of four with an infant and a preschooler. A higher minimum wage could be the difference between having a small savings for emergencies and having none; between maintaining stable housing and couch surfing; between having to choose to pay for a bus pass to get to your job or buying your daughter school supplies.

Increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour will change the trajectory for women working in low-wage jobs. An inclusive minimum wage is an investment in empowering women, strengthening families, and better positioning them for success.

We applaud Governor Murphy and New Jersey’s legislative leaders for coming together to make it happen.

Debra Lancaster is the executive director of the Center of Women and Work at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations. Andrea Hetling is a Faculty Adviser at the Center for Women and Work and an associate professor at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers.