Poll: Most favor higher minimum wage, free community college
February 19, 2015
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Even though the all-out battle to "raise the wage" has fizzled, Americans still have workers' rights on their minds---and polling data shows that they may be more sympathetic to higher wages and more lenient workplace conditions that we previously thought.
A new poll of adult Americans (not just "likely voters") shows that more than half the country supports raising the minimum wage, as well as worker-friendly changes to laws governing paid sick leave and parental leave.
Via the AP:
Proposals to increase the federal minimum wage, as well as to require employers to give paid leave to their employees, find few objections among Americans as a whole. Six in 10 Americans favor raising the minimum wage, including nearly half who are strongly in favor, the AP-GfK Poll shows, while only 2 in 10 are opposed. Six in 10 also favor requiring all employers to give paid time off to employees when they are sick, while two-thirds favor requiring all employers to give time off to employees after the birth of a child. Among Republicans, about half support requiring employers to give paid sick leave and 55 percent support a requirement for paid parental leave. But the minimum wage divides Republicans more closely, with only 4 in 10 in favor, 31 percent opposed and 27 percent not leaning either way. Half of moderate-to-liberal Republicans, but just a third of conservative Republicans, favor a minimum wage increase. About 8 in 10 Democrats and a majority of independents favor each of these workplace proposals.