Thursday, January 30, 2014
Minimum Wage
Questions surrounding the Minimum Wage continue to persist.
Should we just pick a poverty wage number out of the hat and allow the politicians to carry on with their own self-serving political interests?
Yes, $15.00 would definitely "help" many people; but, the fact remains that is still a poverty wage.
The Chair of the Minnesota Select Committee on Living Wage Jobs, Democratic State Representative Ryan Winkler, after calling me a liar for over a year, has finally acknowledged that here in Minnesota, which is one of the lower cost-of-living states, requires a Minimum Wage somewhere between $24.00 and $28.00 an hour for the wage to be considered a "living wage."
There is the argument that the Minimum Wage can't be raised so drastically from $6.15 to $24.00 in one fell swoop... well, why not?
Haven't these employers been pocketing the wages they have been cheating workers out of over these many years the Minimum Wage has been a poverty wage?
Just think of the hardship and suffering working class families have had to endure for all these years because of the pathetic miserly Minimum Wage. This has to count for something.
Quite frankly, employers and these politicians should be very happy workers would be satisfied with getting a real living wage and aren't going to initiate a class action lawsuit to get the back-pay they are entitled to.
If we can't get a real living wage out of this Democratic super-majority we have here in Minnesota with each and every one of these Democrats making the boast that they are "progressive;" then what can we ever expect to get out of the Democrats except for their dirty wars--- and Obamacare... the "Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010?"
We have to step up the struggle for a real living wage based on cost-of-living; we must take this struggle into the proverbial "public square" in a way people will have the opportunity to mull all of this over.
Democracy and the standard of living of the American people requires no less than this kind of open and frank discussion with the involvement of working people.
Should we just pick a poverty wage number out of the hat and allow the politicians to carry on with their own self-serving political interests?
Yes, $15.00 would definitely "help" many people; but, the fact remains that is still a poverty wage.
The Chair of the Minnesota Select Committee on Living Wage Jobs, Democratic State Representative Ryan Winkler, after calling me a liar for over a year, has finally acknowledged that here in Minnesota, which is one of the lower cost-of-living states, requires a Minimum Wage somewhere between $24.00 and $28.00 an hour for the wage to be considered a "living wage."
There is the argument that the Minimum Wage can't be raised so drastically from $6.15 to $24.00 in one fell swoop... well, why not?
Haven't these employers been pocketing the wages they have been cheating workers out of over these many years the Minimum Wage has been a poverty wage?
Just think of the hardship and suffering working class families have had to endure for all these years because of the pathetic miserly Minimum Wage. This has to count for something.
Quite frankly, employers and these politicians should be very happy workers would be satisfied with getting a real living wage and aren't going to initiate a class action lawsuit to get the back-pay they are entitled to.
If we can't get a real living wage out of this Democratic super-majority we have here in Minnesota with each and every one of these Democrats making the boast that they are "progressive;" then what can we ever expect to get out of the Democrats except for their dirty wars--- and Obamacare... the "Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010?"
We have to step up the struggle for a real living wage based on cost-of-living; we must take this struggle into the proverbial "public square" in a way people will have the opportunity to mull all of this over.
Democracy and the standard of living of the American people requires no less than this kind of open and frank discussion with the involvement of working people.