Rural West Virginians discuss their hopes and fears over the minimum-wage increase debate

"While an effort to raise the national minimum wage from its current $7.25 level without Republican votes was blocked in the Senate this month, congressional Democrats have signaled they plan to try again," Jason Lange and Makini Brice report for Reuters. "The stakes are perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in West Virginia. Its 16 percent poverty rate is among the nation’s highest and its low wages - half its workers earn less than $16.31 an hour - mean it could see some of the biggest risks and rewards of such a move."

Raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 would cost the nation between 1.4 million and 2.7 million jobs, as businesses struggle to cope with higher operating costs, according to a February estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. But "in Republican-dominated states, where wages are generally lower than in Democratic-leaning states that are home to America’s biggest cities, the biggest concern is retaining jobs, not raising wages." Lange and Brice report. West Virginia's unemployment rate rose above 15% during the pandemic, higher than the national average. The state's current 6.5% unemployment rate is also higher than the national average. 

"Some experts said job losses could be sharper in rural areas because it will be harder for businesses in small-town America to raise prices enough to offset dramatic increases in pay," Lange and Brice report. For instance, one restaurant owner told Reuters that raising the minimum wage to $15 would be the "death knell" for her business. She couldn't raise the prices on her food enough to cover that wage, and expects she would have to lay off workers.

However, proponents of raising the minimum wage say it won't necessarily result in job cuts, and note that the CBO study projected that increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 would raise the incomes of 17 million Americans and bring 900,000 out of poverty, Lange and Brice report. 

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, "a moderate Democrat who opposes the $15 target ... is emerging as a key force in the narrowly divided chamber. Manchin, whose support would be crucial to the success of any legislation on the issue, says he would back an $11 minimum wage, still a more than 50% increase from where it has stood since 2009," Lange and Brice report. "Five Senate Republicans - including West Virginia’s other senator, Shelley Moore Capito - have proposed an increase to $10, suggesting compromise of some kind is possible."