My best friend grew up with only one parent. Her mom worked mostly minimum wage jobs, and due to health issues, wasn’t able to keep those jobs for very long. By the time we hit high school, her mom’s condition had gotten bad enough that she was no longer able to work at all. At 14, my best friend got a work permit, and became the sole earner in her family. They often had to sacrifice electricity and running water to be able to eat, and sometimes they would go without food so they could keep the heat on in the winter.

Since the inception of Johnson County’s minimum wage ordinance, its opponents have cited teenagers as one of their reasons for not wanting to support a wage increase. Some believe that teenagers simply don’t need more money. This argument suggests that teenagers are not worth as much as their adult coworkers, but if they’re doing the same job, they should be making the same wages. It also comes from a place of privilege. It implies that all working teenagers have two parents who have decent-paying jobs, and that those parents are able to provide everything their teens need and want — food and shelter, basic utilities, a car to get around, savings for college, etc. The reality is that many working teenagers are living in situations much like my best friend’s — working because their parents are trying to live on poverty wages, or because their parents can’t work at all.

Others opposed to the raise fear that employers won’t hire teenagers if they have to pay them a higher wage. We’ve been raising the wage in this country for 80 years. Each time we do, myths like this are trotted out — that employers will cut jobs, close locations, won’t hire teenagers. In reality, what happens every time is that job growth and opportunities stay about the same, if not increase. And those jobs are still offered to teenagers.

The conversation about teenagers’ pay distracts from the real issue: people are not earning enough to survive. Teens make up only about 20 percent of low-wage workers. We shrug our shoulders at the idea of them making only $7.25 an hour, but think about the people who hand you coffee through the drive-through on cold fall mornings, or the people working in fast food restaurants while you take a quick lunch break during the week. The teenagers we often envision having those jobs are in school, and the people actually doing the work are adults trying to pay for their homes and their bills and their families.

Rather than quibbling over what teenagers should earn, we need to focus on the real work. We have to reach out to our city councils. Tell them how desperately all residents in Johnson County need a raise, and urge them to support the Johnson County minimum wage increase. It is much more than an economic issue. It is a moral issue, and we need to take a stand for our workers — teens and adults alike.

Katie Wilson is a member of the Center for Worker Justice and a Coralville resident.

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