Adjusted for inflation, $15 an hour is exactly what Henry Ford paid his workers over 100 years ago.
By Jon Schwarz
The Intercept (9/9/15)
"This Thursday in Manhattan, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for the state to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour for all workers. Cuomo can’t just do this by edict — as he essentially could using an industry-specific wage board when he raised the minimum pay for New York fast food workers to $15 an hour by 2021 — so any raise for everyone will have to pass the state legislature. Still, simply getting the endorsement of the governor of the third-biggest U.S. state is a huge victory for a national movement of low-wage workers.
What will come next is a series of hysterical warnings from conservative pundits that New York can’t meddle with the almighty power of supply and demand, and that this will cause massive unemployment and destroy the very people it’s supposed to help, etc.
So here’s some historical context: Adjusted for inflation, $15 an hour is exactly what Henry Ford paid his workers over 100 years ago.
"t’s true, of course, that only Ford workers initially got $15 an hour, whereas if Cuomo succeeds every worker in New York will. On the other hand, the per capita U.S. gross domestic product is about eight times larger than it was in 1914, adjusting for inflation. If Americans could be paid decently then, there’s much, much more than enough money to pay us decently now."
https://theintercept.com/2015/09/11/new-york-state-may-get-15-minimum-wage-ford-paid-workers-100-years-ago/
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