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.