Posted on 02/07/2013 5:49:42 AM PST by Sir Napsalot
While Eric Cantor feebly tries to rebrand the GOP this week, and President Obama maneuvers to sidestep the sequester he signed into law in 2011, millions of America’s working poor continue to languish. The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009. ..... According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United States is near the bottom of advanced nations when it comes to the ratio of the minimum wage to the median wage. In Australia, the minimum wage now tops $15, and unemployment is 5.4 percent.
With facts like these – and a payroll tax hike that just took $100 billion a year mostly out of the pockets of ordinary workers – you’d think Obama would be leading the charge to give low-income workers a raise. Yet after pledging in his 2008 campaign to lift the minimum to $9.50 by 2011, he’s barely uttered a peep. .......
It’s no surprise that (Ralph) Nader, 78 years old and still fighting the good fight, worked with a couple of dozen liberal Democrats in Congress last year on a bill to lift the minimum to $10. That would still be below 1968’s level, but it would represent a $5,000-plus raise for close to 30 million workers at or near the minimum today (it would also add $25 billion to gross domestic product, according to the Economic Policy Institute). That bill went nowhere without White House leadership; even a lunch-bucket Democrat like Tom Harkin refused to hold hearings on the idea.
....
“Part of the answer,” says Gray Davis, the former governor of California who is thoughtful on these questions, “will be convincing people to pay a little bit more for things so that Americans can have jobs that pay a decent wage.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
heh...
It occurs to me that if you’re going to make a nation’s currency worth the same as Monopoly play money, you should also make it LOOK exactly like Monopoly play money.
That way, if you run out of dough you can go down to Wal-Mart and get more.
$10 minimum wage. To compete with $11/hour Indian tech sector workers offshore.
Yeah right.
Inflation is just a game to these people.
"The last year in which the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate was 1930. That was also the last year in which there was no federal minimum wage law."
THOMAS SOWELL: WALTER WILLIAMS DEBUNKS POPULAR MYTHS ABOUT RACE IN AMERICA
Just yesterday I was given the option to buy an American product or buy one that wasn’t. I bought the one I liked more. There are too many hindrances for Americans to make affordable products.
Bully!
(sort of) :D
In Australia, the minimum wage now tops $15, and unemployment is 5.4 percent
So what?
You want the kid handing you your Big Mac, getting paid $15 to do that? Screw you. I would make my own burger.........
Do these people not understand that by raising the minimum wage, in this day and age will require companies to raise EVERYBODY’S pay?
If I am an office assistant with two years experience and I started at $7.25 p/h but I now make $10 p/h (due to raises), do you think I am going to be happy with the fact that the newest idiot off the street (who I have to train, develop and assist) is making the same amount?
Don’t get me wrong. I, personally, can care less what you pay anyone else. As long as the company is paying me what I feel I am worth, they can pay the janitor a one-million a year - I DON’T CARE.
But, most people today are all about comparing their pay to others pay - not to their tasks, skills, desire, attitude, etc... JUST WAGE FOR WAGE. This would literally DEVASTATE our economy!
“ratio of the minimum wage to the median wage”
Why not just lower the median wage? ;>
Also, when they compute the median wage, do they include all the zeros in that math for those on unemployment?
The concept of ANY minimum wage is fascist. I’m against it based on my core principles. You do point out one reason it’s stupid, though.
At least part of the answer may lie in what one can get with one’s Australian dollar.
The way things are going here in the States, I fear that I may one day have a six-figure income but by then I’ll be shelling out a couple grand for a gallon of milk.
Yay.... but you won’t have this wonderful thing AlGore invented.
Piker! Make the minimum wage $500 an hour!
Well, here in the People’s Democratic Socialist Republic of Illinois, the mighty Quinn has just in fact proposed that.
Piker! Make the minimum wage $500 an hour!
Not sure but I think union contracts are based off of the minimum wage.
Let’s make the min and max wage $10/hour. Then we will all be equal like Obama wants. Equally poor.
there is a dirty little secret that no one bothers to tell the masses about the minimum wage...
union contracts are tied directly to the minimum wage..
when that goes up, the union’s get an automatic raise..
government workers are unionized...
get it...
Raise the min wage 10% and the price of a loaf of bread goes up 15%.
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