{"id":6184,"date":"2005-12-27T09:11:13","date_gmt":"2005-12-27T14:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6184"},"modified":"2005-12-27T09:11:13","modified_gmt":"2005-12-27T14:11:13","slug":"the-minimum-wage-wedge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-minimum-wage-wedge\/","title":{"rendered":"The minimum-wage wedge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rick Klein had a good piece<\/a> in the Boston Globe over the weekend on Dems embracing a wedge issue that, they hope, will do for them what anti-gay-marriage initiatives did for Republicans.<\/p>\n

New Year’s Day will bring the ninth straight year in which the federal minimum wage has remained frozen at $5.15 an hour, marking the second-longest period that the nation has had a stagnant minimum wage since the standard was established in 1938.<\/p>\n

Against that backdrop, Democrats are preparing ballot initiatives in states across the country to boost turnout of Democratic-leaning voters in 2006. Labor, religious, and community groups have launched efforts to place minimum-wage initiatives on ballots in Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Arkansas, and Montana next fall.<\/p>\n

Democrats say the minimum wage could be for them what the gay-marriage referendums were in key states for Republicans last year — an easily understood issue that galvanizes their supporters to show up on Election Day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In principle, this sounds very compelling, especially in an election cycle in which Republicans are likely to face an uphill climb. Of the seven states that will likely have a minimum wage increase on the ballot, three feature Senate pick-up opportunities for Dems (Arizona, Ohio, and Montana). As strategies to boost turnout in the Dems’ favor go, this seems like a good one.<\/p>\n

The only flaw in the approach is that hasn’t worked according to plan lately. Last year, minimum wage increases passed easily in Florida and Nevada (with 71% support and 69% support, respectively). Voters heard all the predictable horror stories about massive job losses if wages went up, and they immediately saw through the nonsense<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bush, however, beat Kerry in both states, as voters who strongly wanted a wage hike nevertheless backed the candidate who opposed a minimum wage increase. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was reportedly scared to death of this issue appearing on the ballot, but his concerns were unwarranted. Floridians overwhelmingly backed a minimum wage increase — while supporting a Republican presidential and senatorial candidate who opposed the idea.<\/p>\n

To be sure, the issue has all the makings of a perfect wedge issue for Democrats. The polls tend to be one sided, Republicans are put on the defensive, and working-class families who may find the right’s social conservatism appealing nevertheless want to see a little more money in their pocket.<\/p>\n

The trick seems to be getting voters to connect the issue to the party that represents their economic interests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rick Klein had a good piece in the Boston Globe over the weekend on Dems embracing a wedge issue that, they hope, will do for them what anti-gay-marriage initiatives did for Republicans. New Year’s Day will bring the ninth straight year in which the federal minimum wage has remained frozen at $5.15 an hour, marking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}