Creating A Living Wage
Feb 2nd, 2007 at 12:33 pm by Maya
Thomas Z. Freedman on why the minimum wage increase is not enough:
If the House and Senate are able to agree on a minimum-wage hike and the president signs the bill, some may say we will have done enough to help low-income workers. It’s true that low-wage workers urgently need a raise, that millions of Americans work full time and still live below the poverty line. But while an increase in the minimum wage is better than nothing, alone it is an incomplete instrument for really making work pay.
We should raise the minimum wage while committing our country to a bigger bargain: If you work full time, then you and your family will live above the poverty line. This goal is not only morally right but one our country can afford.
Go read the rest. His reasoning is sound and if his math is right, it can be done for about 1/16 of the cost of the pork barrel crap that comes through every year. Why is this not on the table?
It’s not on the table because no politician wants to actually solve the problem. Just for the simple fact that it would take the issue away and then they might actually have to work on something.
The top compensation packages for executives
(salaries + benefits + expense accounts + stock
options + bonuses, etc.) should be fixed at 100
times the legislated minimum compensation level.
Then you’ll see the fat cats working vigorously to
improve conditions at the bottom of the scale.
IF you work full time.
That can be a big IF.
.
[...] eight and a half billion dollars, then perhaps we could find that kind of money to create a real living wage, with enough left over for some kind of universal health [...]