Deep Dive with Laura Arnold

Podcast: The Fight for $15: Are Minimum Wage Increases a Path Out of Poverty or a Jobs Killer?

It’s a heated debate that’s unfolding at the federal, state, and local levels. What is the appropriate minimum wage that employers must pay their workers in the United States? In this episode, we take a closer look at the “fight for $15” and whether mandatory wage increases are a benefit to workers or a jobs killer.

Demonstrators rally for better wages outside a McDonald's restaurant in Chicago as part of a push by labor unions, worker advocacy groups, and Democrats to raise the federal minimum wage of $7.25, which has been stagnant since 2009. (Paul Beaty/Associated Press file)

Deep Dive with Laura Arnold

Sky-high drug prices. Mass incarceration. Predatory lending. These are the surface-level symptoms of broken systems. To find answers, we must peel back the layers and look deeper. Join Arnold Ventures Co-Chair Laura Arnold as she shares the mike with leading data-driven experts to explore market failures in health care, criminal justice, education, and public finance — and how to fix them.

Published

Dec 09, 2019

Listen

Sign up for our newsletter

Who's Who

Host Laura Arnold

Laura is the Co-Founder and Co-Chair of Arnold Ventures, founded in 2010, and an attorney and a former oil company executive.

Guest Jacob Vigdor

Jacob Vigdor joined the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance at the University of Washington as a professor of public policy and governance in 2014. He serves as director of the Seattle Minimum Wage Study and the Northwest Applied Public Policy Lab.

Guest Heather Boushey

Heather Boushey is the President & CEO and co-founder of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, which was launched in 2013. She previously served as chief economist for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential transition team and as an economist for the Center for American Progress, the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and the Economic Policy Institute.

Executive Producer David Hebert

The federal minimum wage has stayed at $7.25 an hour since 2009, although 29 states — both red and blue — have set their minimum wage higher. And two-thirds of Americans favor raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, saying it is essential to addressing inequality in the U.S. But those who oppose a wage increase argue it could actually hurt those it is meant to help.

In the latest episode of “Deep Dive with Laura Arnold,” Laura sits down with two of the country’s top experts on economic policy: Jacob Vigdor, a professor of public policy and governance at the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance at the University of Washington, and Heather Boushey, President & CEO and Co-Founder of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Listen to their discussion about the winners and losers in the “fight for 15” and the implications of a higher federal minimum wage.

How to listen

Listen to the podcast in the player above or on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.

About the host

Laura Arnold is the Co-Founder and Co-Chair of Arnold Ventures, founded in 2010, and an attorney and former oil company executive. Read more about her here.

More Stories

What are you looking for?