In addition to declining to state her position on rent control, City Councilperson Meghan Sahli-Wells tucked a fascinating assertion into her comments Monday evening at a candidates forum sponsored by the apartment owners association.
A vigorous advocate for the plight of single mothers, Ms. Sahli-Wells casually noted that single mothers are the leading earners of the minimum wage.
“This is definitely not true in Culver City,” two Downtown business owners told the newspaper.
If there is any truth nationwide to Ms. Sahli-Wells’s claim, it must be a subject of discussion among deaf persons. No supporting evidence could be uncovered in a Google search.
Meanwhile, according to the Employment Policies Institute, a Washington-based, anti-minimum wage hike group :
Advocates of federal and state minimum wage increases often cite poor single mothers as a target population for minimum wage protection. However, the empirical evidence shows that most minimum wage workers are neither single mothers nor poor. In fact, poor single mothers comprise less than 5 percent of all minimum wage workers, and almost 55 percent already earn wage rates greater than $7.25 per hour, the new higher federal minimum wage rate. Thus, most single mothers are unlikely to be affected by minimum wage policies. However, the minimum wage may have important effects on a subset of single mothers: those that are lower-skilled and less-educated.
Where does the truth lie?
It seems like your google search skills may need some refining. With a simple search, I found this New York Times article that supports Ms. Sahli-Wells position: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/the-significance-of-the-minimum-wage-for-women-and-families/?_r=0
It states: About three-quarters of female minimum wage workers are above the age of 20, and about three-quarters of these women are on their own. Many, of course, are working and taking care of children.
But I guess you prefer to two unnamed business owners as ‘sources’.
Here, Ari. Let me help. Google “single mothers” and “Minimum wage”. You’ll get about 322,000 results. Among the first results is this one… (which took me a whole 2 minutes to find). “Fewer than 12% of minimum wage workers are teenagers living at home. Over two-thirds are women and the majority of them are supporting families,” http://womensfoundca.org/event/legislative-briefing-single-mothers-poverty-and-health-benefits-raising-minimum-wage