Bush Ignores Calling For Minimum Wage Increase On 10-Year Anniversary Of Last Increase
Thankfully, relatively few Americans have to deal with the realities of living on the legal minimum wage. Really, though, can someone explain to me WHY the mimimum wage hasn’t increased over the past nine years? What interest is served by forcing even a small number of Americans to live off a wage that has decreased significianly in real terms over the past nine years? And what does it say about us as a society that we think it acceptable that anyone should have to live off $5.15/hr.?
Something is very, VERY wrong when the most powerful and economically vibrant country in the world cannot and will not guarantee those at the bottom of the economic food chain a living wage. Are we so devoted to our $.99 cheeseburgers and 84-oz. Cokes that we are willing to participate in a system that consigns some to living in the often-unbreakable cycle of abject poverty?
Apparently so. And we should be ashamed.
I don’t get it. What’s the percentage in keeping the minimum wage at $5.15 an hour? After nine years? This is such an unnecessary and nasty Republican move. Congress has voted seven times to raise its own wages since last the minimum wage budged. Of course, Congress always raises its own salary in the dark of night, hoping no one will notice. But now it does the same with the minimum wage, quietly killing it.
Anyone who doesn’t think this is a country where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer needs to check the numbers — this is Bush country, where a rising tide lifts all yachts.
And this is Bush country, where “I-got-mine-you-can-damn-well-get-your-own” Conservatism reigns supreme, where self-interest and the accumulation of ever-increasing wealth is viewed as an inalienable right, and where Republicans can utter the words “Compassionate Conservatism” with a straight face. I’m certainly not going to argue against success or material wealth, but when it arrives without a corresponding sense of social responsibility and justice, it’s a truly empty and meaningless achievement. Not everyone is or should carry themselves like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, but I do think that great wealth can and should translate into great expectations: To those to whom much is given, much is expected. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp, nor is it mandatory, but it is something that those of us who have achieved even a modicum of success could bear to keep in mind…especially when you consider these sobering statistics:
- One in four U.S. jobs pays less than a poverty-level income.
- Since 2000, the number of Americans living below the poverty line at any one time has risen steadily. Now, 13 percent — 37 million Americans — are officially poor.
- Bush’s tax cuts (extended until 2010) save those earning between $20,000 and $30,000 an average of $10 a year, while those making $1 million are saved $42,700.
- In 2002, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, compared those who point out such statistics as the one above to Adolph Hitler (surely he meant Stalin?).
- Bush has diverted $750 million to “healthy marriages” by shifting funds from social services, mostly childcare.
- Bush has proposed cutting housing programs for low-income people with disabilities by 50 percent.
- A series of related stats — starting with the news that two out of three new jobs are in the suburbs — shows how the poor are further disadvantaged in the job hunt by lack of public or private transportation.
I’m not advocating socialism, but I do think that how a society cares for the less successful says an awful lot about the type of society it is. It would seem that we as a nation are becoming progressively more comfortable with self-absorbed, self-interested capitalism. In the long run, I’m not at all certain that’s going to be a good thing.
It seems to me that we’ve seen enough evidence over the years that the capitalist system is not going to be destroyed by an outside challenger like communism — it will be destroyed by its own internal greed. Greed is the greatest danger as we develop an increasingly winner-take-all system. And voices like The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page encourage this mentality by insisting that any form of regulation is bad. But for whom?
It is so discouraging to watch this country become less and less fair — “justice for all” seems like an embarrassingly archaic tag. Republicans have rigged the “lottery of life” in this country in ways we don’t even know about yet. The new bankruptcy law is unfair, and the new college loan rules are worse. The system has been stacked so that large corporations have an inside track over small businesses in getting government contracts. We won’t see the full consequences of this mean and careless legislation for years, but it is starting to affect us already.
No, I’m not advocating that we all need to run down to the nearest soup kitchen and volunteer- not that that would be a bad thing. What I am advocating is a greater awareness of what happens around us and the part that our actions, our attitudes, and yes, our greed, play in it. Life doesn’t occur in a vacuum, and we shouldn’t be thinking that our actions don’t have consequences. It’s as simple as realizing that we’re all in this together, and then simply trying to be good neighbors.
I don’t know what the minimum wage should be, nor what economic impacts would arise from increasing it. Even so, shouldn’t an American be guaranteed a wage they can actually live on? And if you don’t see the truth in that, how about trying this challenge: you try living on $5.15/hr. and see how you do. I’m guessing you’re not going to do so well, but this is what some Americans are forced to do- every single day.
