The Minimum Wage
Here's how I see it. This is our chance. Whatever Democrat who thought this up--is a genius. This is our issue--the minimum wage. We need to fight for an increase to the miminum wage. Sure we can phase it in over a few years--but it needs to be done. In fact, we should fight to peg the minimum wage to the hourly wage of a worker making half the national average household income. In fact, I'd even settle for half the national average per capita income.
Here's why this is great. It's simple, it's a matter of more money for more people. You can either be for it or against. It benefits the most vulnerable members of society, whom the world religions teach us, deserve special respect.
The other reason this is great, is that it is a positive platform. No longer are the Democrats fighting against "reforms" but rather for a real reform. This will be real assistance to those on "workfare" and those in rural, small-town America.
This is what I'm going to try and do. Everytime somebody mentions Social Security, I'm going to ask for their support on raising the minimum wage. Everytime a conservative on a blab show opens their uninformed mouth, a Democrat should talk about raising the minimum wage. If the Republicans go "nucular" in the Senate and force a filibuster--the Democratic Senators should get up and talk about raising the minimum wage for the next few weeks. We should truck in poor people from all over the USA, and have them march in front of some television cameras with signs that say, "Raise the Minimum Wage."
For some more information about minimum wage. Check out this excellent NPR story today. Here are some basic talking points.
>Historically, minimum wage was usually set at half of the national average per capita income
>Currently it is about 1/3 the national average per capital income.
>The minimum wage has the lowest actual buying power it has ever had in about the last 50 years.
>A person living on minimum wage now is dependent on government services in order to make ends meet on a daily basis, services which will very soon be insolvent--Medicare, Medicaid, etc...
>People subsisting on such a low minimum wage drive up the costs of our everyday lives, by being more likely to go bankrupt, more likely to not have medical or other insurance, etc...
>Providing good jobs fights crime; remember the 90s?
>Small businesses are hurt more by unfair competition from mafiosi like Sam Walton--who could afford to pay their workers more--than by paying their own workers a fair wage.
This is my new issue. So, if you come up in this hizzle trying to "reform" something like Social Security, prepare to hear more about this from me. As those who care about social justice, we need to fight for this and not shut up about it until it happens. When it does happen, we need to be jerks and point out how the Republicans fought against every step of the way. Then we can point out that they actually voted against it before they voted for it.
Fight for truth, justice, and a decent wage.
posted by lucretius at 9:28 AM
3 helpful remarks:
I'm curious. The Republican rebuttal to the minimum wage increase seems to be based on the argument that it would hurt the small business' ability to toe their bottom line. So if their operating budget were increased by the increase in employee wages they would not be able to keep employees and would therefore hurt the general economy. This seems to smack of Reagonomics (ie. tricke-down economics). What do you think?
9:51 PM
Here's the deal, study after study shows, the more you pay workers, the more "productive" they are. So, if a small business has to let go somebody in order to make ends meet, those workers, more fairly remunerated, will be more productive. This, in turn, will grow the business, causing them to demand business from others, in turn, stimulating the economy. Or, whatever, ask Robert Reich for the details of this argument. Also, government regulations are always criticized as costing too much money from business, however, the auto industry did not go bankrupt from seat belts or energy requirements, the economy did not collapse under the weight of maternal leave requirements, and it sustained several increases in the minimum wage. Those kind of arguments are just scare tactics.
10:05 PM
If you really want to work up your liberal ire go take a look at what David Sirota found regarding executive pay.
Running a small business is hard work and making payroll can be a challenge. Basically I think that there is no easy answer, but encouraging the underpaying of the American worker can't be the right one. We need to raise minimum wage and if McDonalds feels a bite in their third quarter profits, then they will cope. They will have three choices - raise prices, raise productivity, or cope with lower profits. On the whole, though, I think that companies like Wegman's and Costco prove that treating your employees right and paying them well will MAKE you money and profits. I could go on about this for hours, so I'll just sort of cut myself short.
10:05 PM
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