The biggest bread-and-butter issue to Georgia's voters is the minimum wage, and Democrats will win the Senate if they commit to raising it to $15.
That's according to one of the Patriotic Millionaires -- Stephen Prince, vice-chair of a group of that name, made up of wealthy Americans who worry about the effect of the country's lopsided distribution of power and wealth.
"Make the race a referendum on the minimum wage, and Democrats will win," he writes.
That is, Democrats need to "pledge to pass the Raise the Wage Act the day that Warnock and Ossoff are sworn in."
Why? Well, it's a political winner. The day Florida gave Trump a 3.5 percent win over Biden, they voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by a full 20 percent margin. In the last decade, five other red states overwhelmingly voted yea to raising the wage. In the last 18 years, just ONE of 21 wage-increase initiatives won by less than 10 percent. (The article links to his sources.)
In Georgia, a $15 wage would give raises to almost 35 percent of workers."That’s over 1.5 million people earning on average an extra $3,700 a year," Prince writes.
We can add to that point: It's been noted that when low-income employees have money to spare, they spend it on items they've needed for a long time: a reliable car, a trip to the dentist, a new pair of shoes. Or even just a chance to buy better food. That is, the money goes directly into the economy.
So far, neither candidate has made the $15 wage a centerpiece of his campaign, and that needs to change, Prince believes.
He writes, "Their best hope for victory is to spend the next month and a half doing everything in their power to make their names synonymous with a $15 minimum wage."
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