Molly Ivins: Stupidity, survived

[Dudley_DUright]

2006 makes the ninth year in a row the federal minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour. It's bad economics, it's bad policy, it's stupid, it's unfair, and it's high damn time to do something about it. It is also, as Sen. Edward Kennedy says, a moral issue.

The Democrats have a new strategy that may finally get the Republicans off the pot. They're working to get a minimum wage increase on state ballots, including Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Arkansas and Montana. The theory is that putting a minimum-wage increase on the ballot does for Democrats what putting on an anti-gay marriage proposition does for Republicans -- it gets out the base.

<snip>

The last minimum wage increase dates to September 1997, and inflation has since eroded the wage's buying power to its second-lowest level since 1955, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Republican opposition to an increase is based entirely on ideological grounds. Many Republicans keep saying increasing the minimum wage will hurt small business, for which there is no evidence, and cause people making the minimum wage to be laid off. But again, there is no evidence. Time after time, round after round, these same arguments, which are demonstrably false, keep getting repeated. It is really quite painful, since the economic effects of a minimum wage increase have been documented so often.

If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation since 1968, when it was $1.60 an hour, it would be $7.60 an hour today, according to the AFL-CIO. A year-round, full-time worker would have to make $7.74 an hour just to be at the poverty level for a family of three -- $2.59 above the current minimum wage. The gap between middle-class workers and those making the minimum wage is the largest on record.

more...

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=20128

[Warpy]

1. Small businessmen scream bloody murder every time

raising the minimum wage is mentioned.

Then the wage gets raised, their business increases and profits far outstrip the added pittance to their lowest paid workers, and they shut up until the next time.

They never get it, either.

Increased wages at the bottom means an increase in demands for goods and services which means increased sales which means increased profits.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. They never seem to figure out

that people who have no money can spend no money.

Duh???

[Up2Late]

3. And it's the 4th year in a row that the American's average wage has fallen

too. As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said recently, None of it is "trickling down."

<http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2005/12/28/PM200512286.html>

[brainshrub]

4. Stop talking about a minimum wage, and start talking about a living wage.

(nt)