Lori Falce: Minimum wage, self-worth and pizza

My first job was babysitting.

In 1983, at 12 years old, I made $5 an hour. Minimum wage in Pennsylvania was $3.35 at the time.

By the time I was 15, I had a regular client that paid $10 an hour plus pizza. Minimum wage hadn’t budged.

When I had my first “real” job — the kind where taxes get taken out — I was working at a department store while I was in college. It was demoralizing to see my $4.25 minimum wage get cut down by all that withholding. A whole week’s work quickly turned into less than I could make a night supervising sleeping children and watching HBO.

I started working in newspapers at 16, but as a stringer, you don’t get paid by the hour. My initial pay was 25 cents per copy inch — which led to some spectacularly long stories about school board meetings. When I was promoted to clerk, I made minimum wage. As a staff writer at a small daily, it was barely more.

The ladies that worked in the front office, taking classified ads and settling up with 12-year-old carriers, were my gossipy best friends. One was so frustrated when federal minimum wage moved her up.

“But now you’ll get more money, right?” I asked, confused.

“Yes, but now I’m at minimum wage. Again. Do you know how long it took to get to $5?”

Even though it was more money, she felt like she had been kicked down a step. That’s the aspect of minimum wage that isn’t often discussed.

We talk about the economic pros and cons all the time.

People on the bottom rungs of the paycheck ladder need more money. Even people who are against raising the minimum wage can’t argue that more money in your bank account is a beneficial thing.

At the same time, it can’t be denied that employers don’t have limitless budgets. Some small businesses could be pushed to work with skeleton staff or close entirely when forced to up wages.

But we need to talk about minimum wage and self-esteem. A 2021 study at the University of Maine showed that low wages affect the way workers view themselves in the world, which can lead to anxiety, depression, stress and poor physical health.

That isn’t hard to understand when you realize the person writing your paycheck would like to pay you less but legally can’t.

These are things for lawmakers to take into consideration when debating whether to change the minimum wage — something that has been proposed at state and federal levels. In Allegheny County, new county executive Sara Innamorato increased base pay for hundreds of county employees this week, on a path to hit $22 an hour by 2027.

There’s no denying the best benefit of any job is the money. But minimum wage can still make you feel minimally valued. It would behoove all employers to remember that the best workplace isn’t always the one with the biggest paycheck. Sometimes it’s the one where you feel the most valued.

Today, I don’t make minimum wage, but I still work in an industry where the money is not why I come to work every day. No one has ever embraced journalism because of the paycheck.

I do it because I feel like I make a difference. I feel like I am supported by my peers and my leadership.

And — as I am still a 15-year-old babysitter at heart — because sometimes there is pizza.