The legacy of the Fight for $15 (with NELP)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2023

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Exactly one decade ago, activists and civic leaders launched the Fight for $15. It’s hard to recall now, but the idea was wildly controversial at the time—Forbes called Nick’s support of a $15 minimum wage “near-insane,” for example. A new report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP) examines the legacy of the movement and all that it has accomplished in the last 10 years. Two of the report’s authors join us to discuss the Fight for $15’s impact beyond growing paychecks, including its effect on the racial wealth gap, union participation, and the economy overall. Yannet Lathrop is a Senior Researcher and Policy Analyst for the National Employment Law Project. Dr. T. William Lester is Professor and Acting Chair of Urban and Regional Planning at San José State University and Research Professor at UNC Chapel Hill. Twitter: @NELPnews Ten-Year Legacy of the Fight for $15 and a Union Movement https://www.nelp.org/publication/10-year-legacy-fight-for-15-union-movement/ Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0	I can remember when the idea of raising the minimum wage $15 an hour is just a
0:04.6	glint in the eye of a few people. Since 2012 there have been 86 jurisdictions that
0:09.5	have adopted a higher wages and as a result 26 million workers have 150
0:14.6	billion in raises. The 5 for 15 movement is associated with a narrowing of the
0:19.4	wealth gap. It turned out to really help unions too. It helped the labor movement.
0:23.7	The best part of the legacy is killing neoliberalism.
0:32.7	From the home offices of civic ventures in downtown Seattle this is pitchfork economics
0:37.7	with Nick Hanauer, the best place to get the truth about who gets what and why.
0:48.8	I'm Nick Hanauer, founder of Civic Ventures.
0:52.0	I'm David Goldstein, senior fellow at Civic Ventures.
1:00.6	I don't know if we've talked about this on the podcast before Nick, but when it comes to our
1:05.6	economic advocacy you and I have kind of interrelated origin stories. A little bit.
1:13.6	Back in 2012 when you first drew ridicule from some of your cohort and certainly from Forbes
1:24.1	magazine for advocating a $15 minimum wage. That's true. Forbes called it your near insane idea
1:36.0	and it was also back in 2012 when I was a reporter for the stranger, Seattle's all weekly,
1:43.3	that I first started covering the fight for 15 and our then candidate, socialist candidate
1:52.5	for city council who was advocating for it and our local union, the SEIU 775 that was pushing
2:01.9	forward in CTAG and so I became very involved because I was an advocacy journalist.
2:09.2	I was never shy about it. The things I covered, I covered in a certain biased way and was open
2:16.2	about it and you as a fan of that coverage reaching out to me and we started working together
2:24.3	in 2014, right? Yeah, you know, probably told the story on pod before, but you know the fight for
2:32.7	15 and the $15 minimum wage, all of that stuff. For me and my colleague David Rolf were a product
	...

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