Making the minimum

June 22, 2006

Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings

I know Steve posted on the minimum wage issue yesterday (see here), but my anger is such that I thought I’d weigh in, too, albeit from the rather detached perspective of a Canadian observing the unfortunate goings-on south of the border.

Our minimum wage varies by province and territory, by the way, but it’s higher than the American one across the board. (And you can add on free health care and a compassionate safety net, too.) You can find our current rates here.

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Do you make the minimum wage? Tough, say Republicans. You won’t be getting an increase anytime soon. From the AP:

The Republican-controlled Senate smothered a proposed election-year increase in the minimum wage Wednesday, rejecting Democratic claims that it was past time to boost the $5.15 hourly pay floor that has been in effect for nearly a decade.

The vote was 52 to 46. Now, I’m just speculating here, but I doubt that any of those 52 make $5.15 an hour. As Ted Kennedy noted, that hourly wage amounts to just $10,700 a year, “almost $6,000 below the poverty line for a family of three”.

Think about that. $5.15 an hour. That’s, like, a grande something-or-other at Starbucks. Or a couple of slices of cheap pizza. Or a couple of bus rides. I don’t think I’m a terribly extravagant person, but it’s rather easy to blow through the equivalent of US$5.15 in a relatively expensive place like Toronto.

Even if you budget well, even if you’re careful with your money, what’s $5.15?

Well, that’s all some people make. And, to them, $5.15 surely means a lot. Democrats want to help those people, to give them a chance at a decent life, to help them put food on the table and take care of their kids, maybe even save a bit for an increasingly uncertain future.

But Republicans won’t even boost the minimum to $5.85.

That’s 70 (bleeping) cents, less than a cup of coffee. Even after two years, Kennedy’s proposed minimum would only be $7.25. I say only, but I’m not critical of Kennedy. He’s doing what he can for those who make the minimum and that extra $2.10 would make a huge difference in their lives.

Republicans rubber stamp Bush’s adventures in Iraq and tax cuts for the wealthy even as they ignore the very people who need all the help they can get. These are Americans who are struggling, who are hurting, who are barely making it from day to day. If you still need a reason to vote for the Democrats this coming November, and again in ’08, think about those people, the people who don’t have millions to spend on lobbyists, who can’t cram their agenda through Congress, who don’t have a friend in the Oval Office, who don’t have a voice in Washington.

And think about $5.15. Take it out of your pocket and look at it. And consider your life on that much an hour. Why allow others to be paid what you’d never want to be paid yourself?

Shame on the GOP.

It’s just not “popular” to be poor in this country. The things you point to — minimum wage increases, health care insurance, and the like — would all help the poor. But those just aren’t our values anymore. And we still like to believe that, as a nation, we’re followers of that man who talked about such unpopular tasks as helping the poor, feeding the hungry, visiting the prisoner, and the like. Alas.

  • Heck, you start raising the minimum wage, and giving health care to the poor, next thing you know there won’t be as much incentive for the poor to join the military and fight these wars of choice. Can’t have that.

  • The GOP—or, at the very least, the collection of tyrannical “uberschweinen” who promote thenselves as “the party of values”—lacks the intestinal fortitude to experience shame. Their greed expands beyond even the most fantastic fictional accounts of defined cowardice. They are the mother hen who has developed a horrific appetite for chickens.

    Their messianic leadership has repeatedly disavowed their moral and ethical responsibility for the citizenry under their watch, choosing instead to promote policies that exploit, degrade, dehumanize, and ultimately reject the fundamental rights, liberties, and core needs of that portion of the American populace who should be given the greatest concern.

    Clearly, BushCop and its putrid collection of legislative/judicial misfits—combined with an upper-level bureaucracy that probably couldn’t pass a basic entry-level examination regarding the elemental functions of their assigned departments of responsibility—must be brought to task in the near-term, before they can do even more grievous damage to the United States. There is no longer an iron-clad guarantee that this can be accomplished through the electoral process; the current administration may well believe it holds the “Constitutional right” to interpret the validity of an election.

    The most immediate—and fundamentally pragmatic solution to the crimes-against-humanity mentality of the GOP Congress; the GOP administration; the GOP heartlessness on a foundational level, is for the free world to commence a direct, overt policy of isolation against what has become the “true” Axis of Evil: George Bush, his administration, his cabinet, and his Congress. Without the rest of the world, Bush has no “foreign policy.” Without the rest of the world, Bush has no “economy”—and thus by default, no “domestic policy.”

    Will such an action by the global community hurt the average Mr. and Mrs. Citizen? Yes—but when compared to the path of Empire which this most current American government is treading upon, the old adage of “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” most certainly applies.

    In the name of Truth, Justice, and Freedom—in the name of the Constitution—in the name of the People of the United States of America—cast this wretched excuse of a government down….

  • Maybe some Republican will soon propose a bill prohibiting people at certain income levels from learning how to read. At some point, what’s the difference? Just make sure the newly illiterate and perpetually poor people can still vote and we’ll scare ’em into voting GOP.

    Seriously, 15 years ago when I was in high school I had a minimum wage job that at the time paid $4.25/hour. And THEN it was too little. That was while living with my parents and really needing only spending money. I can’t imagine anyone trying to run a household on even the proposed increased amount of $7.25.

    This should be the top issue for Dems in the election. While the GOP tries (again) to use the terrorist threat to make it about whether people will live or die, Dems should clobber the opposition with pocketbook issues, which of course, are also live or die. Let’s do this.

  • The class war:

    It has always been okay to wage from the top down.

    But should a democrat start “rabble rousing” watch the republicans and the media bewail “the class war.”

    They will whine.
    They will call it immoral.
    They will say it hurts the good will of the country.

    All to stop it from being waged from the bottom up.

    You see that’s a cultural no-no.
    Thou shall not go there.
    It’s taboo.

    And that’s why this country of ours is in so much trouble:

    There aren’t any rabble rousers.

    And so…
    The sleeping poor stay asleep,
    Amd dream of winning the lottery…
    And being driven around in a limo…

    Gee… I wonder who helped convince them of those fantasies?

  • While it in no way takes away from this discussion, it is perhaps worth mentioning that the minimum wage rates listed for Canada are in Canadian Dollars.

    The lowest General Minimum Wage listed was $7.00 (Alberta). This works out to be about $6.27 USD which obviously is still higher than the U.S. Federal Minimum Wage Rate of $5.15 USD.

    It is probably also worth mentioning that some states in the U.S. (IL, CA, WA, OR, WI, MN, FL, AK, HI, ME, NH, NY, MA, RI, NJ, MD) have set higher minimum wage rates. (I may have missed a few)

  • While the Democrats dance around their two proposals for … whatever they’re for, John Edwards is speaking today at the National Press Club about concrete ways to reclaim meaning and purpose for our party. You can see a preview here.

  • A quick review of the voting on the minimum wage bill (okay, it was a procedure for a rider, but anyway) shows a couple of interesting Republican votes. Four Republicans (Martinez – FL, Smith – OR, & Stevens & Murkowski – AK) all voted against the proposal. But, all of their states have minimum wages higher than the federal wage. In Alaska, a ballot initiative was in place, but the legislature enacted a bill close enough to the ballot initiative that it was negated. And, in both Oregon and Florida, the voters approved the minimum wage increases (in Florida with a Consititutional amendment).

    So it seems that these four are putting their own points of view (or more likely their party’s point of view) over the will of their consituents.

  • RhodyJim,

    Are those the only 4 Republicans from states with higher minimum wage than the federal wage that voted against the proposal? If so it doesn’t really matter in the end, their votes would have brought the total in favor to 56 (still 4 votes shy).

  • Very few people actually work for the federal minimum wage. Last year I saw an ad for crew members at a McDonalds at a California airport for $10/hour. But the fact is that some people, exploited by bottom-feeding employers, do make that minimum, . As you might guess, those workers are the most vulnerable and the most needy among us — the one’s who need help the most.

    Also, every time this comes up, the rethugs trot out the same old argument that the struggling small businesses won’t be able to pay it, and that they’ll have to lay off the very people that the raise is supposed to help. This always turns out to be a crock, and there is no spike in the unemployment rate following the raise. It’s just that serious discussion of a raise comes so seldom that there’s always a new crop of shavetail GOP congressmen who think they’ve just discovered some new economic law.

  • I blog occasionally at John Edwards’s One America Committee (without necessarily endorsing Edwards), and I certainly recommend heading over there to check out what Edwards and the other featured bloggers have to say. The minimum wage is one of the key issues addressed there.

    The Canadian figures are indeed in Canadian dollars — our dollar is now quite strong against the U.S. dollar, which makes our minimum wages look stronger than usual. And it isn’t surprising that Alberta — run for as long as I can remember by as right-wing a Conservative Party as you can find in this country — has a relatively low minimum wage. What benefits Canada’s poor more than a higher minimum wage, I suspect, is free health care, along with decent public housing.

    Steve: “the collection of tyrannical ‘uberschweinen'”? Hilarious! Nice use of German during the World Cup.

  • The Republicans say that raising the mininum will be a hardship on job growth. Evidently, the logic is to stay competitive with China’s slave labor.
    Interestingly, they have no problem accepting automatic pay raises for themselves or looking askance at the obscene payouts to CEO’s even when they lose money for the companies they head.

  • The minimum wage after SS tax is about the price of a bottle of shampoo. It certainly isn’t enough to buy razor blades these days… One Senator actually said that those making minimum wage might be prompted to move someplace else where they can make more money or get more education. What a joke!! Move with what money for U-Hauls, security deposits, etc? Go to school and pay for tuition that has gone up several times the rate of inflation, with what money???? They are truly out of touch with reality!

  • Could any of us live on $200 a week BEFORE taxes? $400 a week? I don’t know about you, but an average 1 bedroom apt. in the Redmond, Wa area is over $650 a month. Add in electricity, phone, and food and that comes to at least $600 a month. And we haven’t even paid for gas, a beater car, daycare, clothes, school supplies…or had the taxes deducted.

    Republican’ts are CLUELESS about what it costs to live. The last time they were “struggling” they still had more in pocket change than most people have for groceries.

  • Conservatives love to argue that these are “starter jobs” – apparantly they believe only high school kids work them. It would be good to always be prepared with some information (anybody?) about just who does work them. How many people earn the minimum wage? How many of those are over 21? How many of those are middle age? How many are minorities?

    It’s my firm belief that these conservatives are simply ignorant of the world around them and are incapable of considering other walks of life (you know, anything other than the suburban, well-to-do WASP lifestyle from Leave It To Beaver?)

  • “I doubt that any of those 52 make $5.15 an hour”
    a quick comment:
    it’s a bit confusing, but the 52 senators (dems + 8 re-election republicans + 1 indep) actually voted for the minimum wage increase. we needed 60 to pass the legislation.

    so, i believe, that comment was geared toward the other 46 republican’ts.

  • Congress “earns” $165,200/year, which is $1,270 per day for the 130 days they plan to work this year, or $158/hr (assuming they work an 8 hr day on average)

    That is 30x the minimum wage. Add onto this their healthcare, pension, and misc. perks.

    Congress has voted itself a total of $16,700 in raises over the last six years. That works out to a raise of $16/hr.

    Class warfare? You bet. And it’s pretty obvious which class is winning.

  • I remember when I was a college student working for Manpower Inc. temporary worker services over the summers. I worked along with people with families working for $3.50 an hour, and I couldn’t believe how they managed with $140 a week. Nothing much has changed, I am sure. There are plenty of companies still paying minimum wage; don’t anybody fool themselves otherwise. The GOP continues to ruin the USA. Egads…

  • Rian — the answers you seek can all be found at the website of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and most of them flatly contradict everything the Republicans say about the minimum wage.

    For example, a year ago there was a spate of letters to the editor of my local paper about this subject, including one from a Republican who stated “nobody earning minimum wage has even a bachelor’s degree.”
    I found that suspect, and did some looking at the BLS website, and sure enough found that in 2004 there were some 140000 people earning minimum wage who had a bachelor’s degree or better, not a huge number in a national context, perhaps, but hardly “nobody,” either. (It’s about 5 – 6% of all minimum wage earners.)

    Amusingly, he also stated that he and “the rest of the GOP” would fight minimum wage increases “tooth and nail.” This was only a few weeks after 37 GOP senators voted in FAVOR of a minimum wage increase proposed by Rick Santorum. (Santorum’s was not a serious proposal, of course, containing several poison pills designed to severely blunt any benefits for workers, but it WAS a proposed increase.)

    The Fiscal Policy Institute (non-partisan) reports that employment outcomes in states that have independently raised their state minimum wages “have generally been more favorable than in other states.” On its website you will find such information as: A) total employment in higher minimum wage states increased by 6.2% from 1998 – 2004, 50% greater than in states where the Federal minimum wage prevailed, and B) retail employment grew by 6.1% in the higher mimimum wage states versus a paltry 1.9% in the other states. All of this shoots down the standard anti-minimum wage mantra from conservatives: “raising the minimum wage would cost jobs.” They must be thinking of what happened in the 1990s, when 11 million jobs were lost in the four years following the 1996 minimum wage increase.

    Oops, did I say “lost”? I meant GAINED. Real-world facts can be such a bitch, which is why conservatives routinely ignore them.

  • It is probably also worth mentioning that some states in the U.S. (IL, CA, WA, OR, WI, MN, FL, AK, HI, ME, NH, NY, MA, RI, NJ, MD) have set higher minimum wage rates. (I may have missed a few)

    Comment by Danny — 6/22/2006 @ 12:01 pm

    I wasn’t aware of this, and it makes me wonder if a federal minimum wage is the wrong way to go. Seems like it might make more sense to press for m.w. increases at the state level since it’s easier to match it to the standard of living in a given state. It sounds as if that’s what Canada does.

    Another advantage of state initiatives versus federal is that state initiatives will get far more exposure in the media than a federal one would, and as a result they *might* get more support from voters.

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