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Homework assignment

One of our readers, Dewey Quong, wrote us a letter to the editor assigning us some work to do. He was commenting on Sheila Leslie’s Feb. 16 column in which she wrote, “The 2015 legislation set aside about $5,100 per student in each voucher, far less than the cost of tuition of most private schools in Nevada, essentially turning the program into a subsidy for wealthy families, many of whom already send their children to private school.”

Quong wrote, “Is that fact or opinion? It is time for some hard numbers. Call up the local elementary, secondary and high schools to see how much they charge per student to attend. Include supplemental costs/fees not included in the tuition like uniforms, individual computers/tablets, books, lab supplies, etc. Ask the schools what they think the family should be earning to comfortably afford to send their children to that school. Also include how many hours each parent must give back to the school, like to help supervise field trips, work the counter at bake sales, etc. Now find out the average take-home pay of all the working people in Nevada who have children including those families living in motel rooms. Take the average take-home pay and minus the cost of living in Nevada for housing, food, clothing, transportation and other expenses required to live in the state. Put everything in nice columns and rows and show the percentage of people who can and can’t send their children to voucher schools.”

We’re not going to gather all this, some of which does not exist, but here are a few statistics that might be helpful to readers:

According to the Nevada Department of Education, the average cost allocated to pupils in Nevada during the current school year is $5,774. In Clark County, where most students live, it is $5,574. In Washoe, it is $5,658. Smaller counties tend to receive more, with one exception (Lander). In three counties, the allocation reaches five figures. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average national per-pupil spending is $10,700.

Shortly after the Nevada school grants program was enacted by the 2015 Nevada Legislature, we reported (“Working Poor Left Behind?” Aug. 13, 2015) that American Enterprise Institute researcher Nat Malkus wrote in U.S. News & World Report, “But market-based reforms depend on a functionally competitive market, and educational savings accounts alone cannot guarantee that. … My colleague Elizabeth English and I conducted a randomized survey of half of Nevada private schools (enrolling 50 or more students in 2011-12). The median private school was just over $8,000. Less than 20 percent of schools had tuitions below $5,200, and a quarter had tuitions below $5,700. On the one hand, these tuition prices bode well for a viable school choice market, because some options can be had with the educational savings account alone. On the other, families that can’t afford to supplement their accounts will be priced out of over half of Nevada’s private schools at current tuition rates.”

On Oct. 29, Trevon Milliard reported in the Reno Gazette-Journal that “only 7 percent of students applying for the money live in areas reporting low household income, while nearly a third of takers reside in the state’s richest zip codes where median household incomes exceed $75,000 at the least. A vast majority of applicants—80 percent—live in neighborhoods where median household incomes outpace the state median of $51,000, according to the Reno GazetteJournal’s analysis of information released about the 3,000 students seeking public money for private school.” —Dennis Myers

Fast food workers tend to be portrayed as the classic low wage workers, but they have plenty of company.

PHOTO/DENNIS MYERS

Minimum

Wages stagnate under the federal threshold

During this week in 1933, a debate was going on in the Nevada Legislature over the minimum wage. The Nevada Assembly approved a $5 a day minimum compared to the Senate’s $4 a day.

A $4 a day wage would have been $0.50 cents an hour for an eight hour day. If adjusted for inflation over the years, it would now be $9.34. A $5 daily wage would have been $0.625 an hour. In 2017 dollars, that would be $11.67.

In fact, today’s federal minimum is $7.25 an hour—and it was raised to that level eight years ago. The federal minimum has not kept up with inflation in years.

In Nevada, the minimum wage is $8.25. Nevadans voted in 2006 to make the state wage one dollar higher than the federal minimum. That gives workers some relief, but it is still tied to a federal minimum that chronically lags. (Employers who provide health insurance are immune from the extra dollar.)

A nationwide effort for a $15 minimum wage has been underway for several years. The Fight for 15 campaign began on the east coast, particularly New York, but scored its biggest breakthroughs in the West. In 2014, Seattle became the first city to enact a $15 an hour minimum. After two years, a Seattle Minimum Wage Study Team at the University of Washington posted a study indicating that the hike did what it was supposed to do—raising pay while causing few job losses and increasing the annual income even of workers who lost hours. The business community went to work trying to discredit the study.

At the 2015 Nevada Legislature, Clark County Sen. Richard Segerblom introduced a $16 minimum measure ($15 for employers with health insurance). In a session with a double Republican majority, it was given one hearing and never heard from again.

The movement picked up steam in the presidential campaign when candidate Bernie Sanders campaigned against “totally inadequate wages.” Paradoxically, when the minimum wage issue was riding high and enjoying momentum, a Nevada initiative petition to boost wages was withdrawn from circulation.

PenDing ProPosals

At the current Nevada Legislature, an Assembly measure would increase the minimum wage by $1.25 per hour each year until 2022 when it would hit $15 if an employer does not offer health insurance, $14 if s/he does.

A Senate bill raises the minimum 75 cents per hour annually until it hits $11 an hour with insurance, $12 without.

This gradualism is not popular among some higher wage advocates. One Nevada Bernie Sanders campaign official said the $15 wage is needed now and that by 2022 “some of the raise will be eaten up” by inflation.

They also say Nevada’s economy is hampered by the low minimum because consumer spending lags. “Local businesses, our state’s economy, and, most importantly, everyday Nevadans will benefit from a pay raise,” said Assemblymember William McCurdy, sponsor of the Assembly version.

The business community is making its customary arguments against the minimum wage.

“Nevada’s minimum wage proposal would turn some low-margin small businesses in the state into the new victims of dramatic minimum wage hikes,” wrote Employment Policies Institute research directory Michael Saltsman in a Las Vegas Review-Journal essay. “The result would be fewer job opportunities for those who need not only a paycheck

but also the structure, skills and workplace socialization that comes with learning on the job. The Silver State should focus on preserving these entry-level employment opportunities, not threatening to eliminate some of them and exacerbate its high youth unemployment rate with a dramatic minimum wage increase.”

But today’s $7.25 federal minimum is actually lower in real dollar terms that it has been several times in the last half century. And during that period, workers have increased their productivity, hours and education levels.

There is one additional problem that critics have raised. The previous ballot measure approved by voters amended the Nevada Constitution at article 15, section 16. It contains specific figures for a minimum wage. But the bills being considered by the legislators would change statutes, not the constitution.

Columnist Thomas Mitchell argues the state minimum cannot be raised without constitutional change. He quoted a 2015 Legislative Counsel Bureau fact sheet: “Because provisions governing the minimum wage rate are included in the Constitution, any changes to the minimum wage provisions require a constitutional amendment.” A statement from “Everyday Nevadans the governor’s office recited a list will benefit from a pay of reasons Gov. Sandoval has raise.” opposed a higher minimum wage but did not say he Assm. William McCurdy would veto one. Clark County Democrat “Due to the predicted loss of jobs and harm to small businesses, the potential to block young people and individuals with less work experience from open positions, and an increase in consumer prices, the governor has historically opposed a legislative mandate to increase the minimum wage,” the statement said. Ω

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Workers have improved some of the front of the California Apartments at Forest Street and California Avenue. The building, designed in the 1920s in a Classical Revival style, served many people who came to Reno to establish their residences for quick divorces. “The California Apartments drew a high-class clientele from among locals and divorceseekers,” according to a Mella Harmon essay at RenoHistorical.org.

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