Super-size McDonald's raise benefits us all: Column

This week, some union-backed McDonald's employees and other minimum and near-minimum wage workers across the country are protesting for higher wages. Raising low end wages might help the workers themselves, but how would this move affect you if you make more than minimum wage? Pretty well, actually. In our research studying happiness and economic well-being, we have seen that higher minimum wages have wide positive impacts on whole communities.

Walmart and McDonald's both recently announced that they will be increasing the wage they pay workers to $10 an hour perhaps in part to stave off criticism from advocates of the so-called "Fight for $15," who are pushing for, you guessed it, $15 an hour. In McDonald's case the $10 wage will apply only to corporate-owned restaurants, meaning it will affect only about 10% of the McDonald's workers, since the rest work at franchises.

Is that enough? No. Let's be clear. Our research supports an increase to $10 — but more would be better. We compared about two dozen industrial nations and found that higher minimum wages improve the quality of life for everyone.

Everyone? Basically, yes. Obviously, higher minimum wages help the low-wage workers who get a raise, but in our research, we looked at overall levels of happiness and well-being for whole populations. We looked at survey data made up of rich people, poor people, middle class people, young people, old people, etc. And we found that the higher minimum wage, the higher the average level of happiness overall. In other words, when low-wage workers ask for a raise, the rest of us need not support them out of compassion or sympathy or a sense of justice (although those are sound reasons). We can do so out of self-interest.

Here's why: very low wages create tensions in low-wage workers workplaces, households and communities that spill into society at large. A nation suffers when full-time workers still require food stamps, welfare and medical assistance.

The truth is that helping people survive via government benefits is more expensive and less efficient than simply paying them enough to live independently in the first place. On top of that, reducing the fraction of the population requiring welfare appears to reduce social tensions.

Higher minimum wages improve workplaces both by giving workers the incentive and the means to perform better on the job. If they can afford to get childcare, see a doctor occasionally to prevent absence-causing illnesses and put gasoline in the car, they find it easier to report for work.

Our research did not tell us exactly what the ideal minimum wage is. However, we can say that McDonald's raise at its corporate-owned outlets won't deliver much benefits to the rest of us. True, the raise may provide an increase in the worker-quality and satisfaction under the Golden Arches, but the biggest gains will come only when wages rise across America.

Michael A. Krassa is a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Benjamin Radcliff is a professor at University of Notre Dame.

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