Reid on $10.10 minimum wage: 'We didn't pick that number just to be fun'

[ProSense]

Reid on $10.10 minimum wage: 'We didn't pick that number just to be fun'

by Laura Clawson

Sen. Susan Collins is reportedly looking for compromise on the minimum wage—if Democrats accept a smaller increase than they've been looking for and give Republicans a variety of other sweeteners, Collins would try to bring a few members of her party on board. There are just a few small problems with that: Democrats don't want to give things away in exchange for a minimum wage that still leaves working families in poverty, and there's no real reason to believe Collins could get enough Republicans to support such a plan.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is not negotiating down:

“No, there are none. Nope,” Reid told reporters following a minimum-wage rally with union members and other Democratic leaders. “The reason we picked that number, $10.10, gets you out of poverty — $10 doesn’t. $10.05 doesn’t. We didn’t pick that number just to be fun.” The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.

And the allegedly semi-moderate-at-some-times Republicans who are supporting the Senate's unemployment aid compromise are firmly against raising the minimum wage:

“I would not be going along with a compromise. If that came to a vote, I would oppose it,” said Sen. Mark Kirk (Ill.), one of five Republicans who last week crafted a bipartisan deal on unemployment benefits.

Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who spearheaded the negotiations on unemployment assistance, said the minimum wage is an issue best left to the states instead of the federal government. <...>

Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio), another centrist Republican who supported this week’s agreement on unemployment benefits, said he would not be inclined to support a minimum wage compromise.

“I don’t think so. Ohio has a higher minimum wage actually indexed to inflation,” he said.

Ohio’s minimum wage is $7.95 an hour.

$7.95 an hour works out to just over $16,500 for a year of full-time work, so Ohio has not exactly licked the problem of people working hard but still living in poverty. And if the minimum wage was truly left to the states, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Louisiana would have no minimum wage at all.

So Democrats have absolutely no reason to compromise down, engaging in a still-futile effort to get Republicans to agree to even a tiny, poverty-level increase. Better to organize around the right policy and fight to make that happen in the long run than show weakness, then fail, in the short run.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/04/1289585/-Reid-on-10-10-minimum-wage-We-didn-t-pick-that-number-just-to-be-fun

The debate is over.

BOOM: Obama signs order to raise minimum wage for federal contractors...disabled workers included!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024489919

Obama Praises Gap, Inc. For Raising Minimum Wage for Employees
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024530373

Statement by the President on Connecticut's minimum wage increase
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024744791

POWERFUL SPEECH: Obama Open FIRE GOP's Budget, Pushes Minimum Wage in Michigan
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017184951

[ProSense]

1. Raise the Wage:

[Donald Ian Rankin]

2. Only for a wholly arbitrary definition of poverty.

I'm quite prepared to believe that the difference between trying to live on $10:10 an hour and $10:05 an hour may be more significant than the half-a-percent margin makes it look, for a variety of reasons.

But the claim that the difference between $10:10 and $10:05 is much different to the difference between $10:15 and $10:10, or between $10:05 and $10:00, is preposterous.

My guess is that the figure was picked because $9 0 doesn't make nearly such a good headline as $10:00, and $10:00 looks more as though it was picked to be a headline than $10:10 does; the extra 10 cents makes it look more precisely gauged than it actually can be.

[Euphoria]

3. what the h is wrong with

Sen Susan Collins?

[Jamaal510]

4. So Susan Collins

expects there to be compromise on a $10.10 minimum wage...even though today's minimum wage would've been at least about $20 had it kept up with worker productivity. I know this is the best that the Democrats could push for when dealing with a bunch of nuts from the other party, but what I'm mad about is that people like Collins either don't understand (or don't want to) that a person really can't pay the bills and buy groceries with $10.10, let alone with the current federal minimum wage of $7.25. The only people who can do something with a $7.25 or a $10.10 minimum wage are people who still live with their parents, who don't have any bills to pay.

[Doctor_J]

5. Dems are as good at negotiating

as fish are at playing football.

[ProSense]

6. This Graph Shows Why We Need To Raise The Minimum Wage

This Graph Shows Why We Need To Raise The Minimum Wage
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024780507

[winter is coming]

7. While you were picking, why didn't you choose a *living* wage? n/t

[Cha]

8. Thanks again, Harry Reid! thanks PS