Kerry Proposes Raising Minimum Wage

[NewYorkerfromMass]

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Friday proposed raising the federal minimum wage to $7 an hour by 2007, which he contended would benefit working women more than any other group.

The proposal, which calls for phasing in the $1.85 increase, mirrors Democratic-sponsored plans proposed in the House and Senate.

Kerry said three out of four women who would benefit from the increase are adults. Such a boost in the minimum wage, which has not changed from $5.15 since 1997, would provide a family with enough money to buy 10 months of groceries or pay for eight months of rent, he said.....

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/apmethods/apstory?urlfeed=D839GFM80.xml

[TahitiNut]

1. Loooong overdue ...

[lancdem]

3. Well said

[papau]

9. Excelleny Chart! Living wage NOW!

:-)

[Just Me]

50. So, true. Americans have to practically starve to death,...

,...before their representatives will even move towards a living wage. It's sad!!!!

[salinen]

2. Tom Delay

doesn't understand. How is it possible to starve people when they are able to buy groceries?

[MallRat]

6. Dog food doesn't count, Bugman.

:eyes:

[gWbush is Mabus]

4. fuck that - how about $10/ hour by 2006.

[StopThief]

8. Why not $25.00 an hour immediately?

nfm

[napsi]

40. $25.00 an hour?

I'm all for an increase.....are you ready for the increased costs of the goods and services you buy with a minimum wage of $25.00? Rational thinking will get you everywhere.

[Occulus]

46. Not if you also put in place a

MAXIMUM WAGE CAP.

If they, our bosses, can tell us how much we can be paid, maximum, then we ought to be able to tell them the same damn thing.

I can think of no location in the USA where a person, couple, or six-member family cannot live for less than, say one and a half million dollars per year. Make THAT the federal cap. $1.5M.

I would also support a corporate officer wage cap, with their maximum pay- including bennies and stock options- as a percentage of their gross annual sales.

I think it's time.

[papau]

10. I agree - $10.00 makes more sense.

:-)

[Mnemosyne]

24. definetly, $10.

$7 only gives a gross income of 13,440 per year

$ 10 earns gross of 19,200 2 or 3 might be able to manage with very slim basic needs, forget it if one is ill.

1 person could scrape by hard on 13,440, but forget more than 1.

I live on approx. 9500 due to illness and am educated, partially university and much research on own. It isn't anything near easy.

Part of my illness has caused brain damage in certain functions, note the spelling errors? I went to spellcheck and it said 'error on page' and I said yes there are and left them.

[California Democrat]

41. What about layoffs?

Not all businesses will be able to afford to pay this much for their unskilled labor. I'm afraid there will be a bunch of layoffs.

We won't be able to blame the Bushies if unemployment suddenly skyrockets...

[Tippy]

5. Thank God ....n/t

[onehandle]

7. There he goes again. Concern for the workers.

Lousy commie pinko.

[jpgray]

11. Glad he mentions women here

So many of our problems in this country have to do with what happens when you have a single mom who has to work two shitty jobs to support her kid(s). Those shitty jobs are never going to allow her to get her head above the financial water, nor will the amount of time she will have to work each allow her to actually parent her children as effectively as she would otherwise be able to. These kids are therefore at a severe disadvantage when it comes to education, and since our current philosophy is to throw tests at them until they quit in digust, this leaves a perpetual cycle of keeping many poor and inner-city kids dumb and hopeless.

[klook]

14. Did you hack into the GOP's secret strategy files?

That sounds like exactly what they're trying to do.

Even $7 an hour is $14,000 a year for a typical full-time worker. But, since many minimum wage workers work fewer than 40 hours a week (so their employers don't have to give them benefits), it's even less.

If this comes up for a vote before Congress, watch in revulsion as all the millionaires weep, wail, and gnash their teeth over the prospect of increasing the minimum wage from starvation level to extreme poverty level.

www.workingpoorpicnic.com

[jpgray]

15. The media will blare that it will 'force' more corporations to outsource

But of course, not much will be made of the fact that the ratio of CEO pay to average worker's pay has ballooned to 300 to 1, compared to 42 to 1 as recently as '84.

[Mnemosyne]

23. I hope you meant to say uneducated and hopeless?

[egalois]

45. The kids would not be so disadvantaged

if their father were around.

[progressivebydesign]

12. Good thought... BAD political idea..

While it makes sense to low wage voters.. many of whom don't vote anyway, it is a total turn-off to small biz owners... who ARE voters and tend toward Republican, because of their pereceived sensitivity to small biz owners. I think Kerry should have kept this as an initiative once he was elected. While it's a great plan, it's a sure fire flag for small business owners.

Small business owners in America are one of the least represented in these elections... and yet they really drive the economy. I had sent a few emails to the Kerry campaign, urging them to reach out to that voting group.. but obviously they don't have a chance to read their mail, or think they know better.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

16. Kerry devotes a large section of his site to small businesses

Have you seen it? I believe he's thought it through and done his homework.

http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/smallbiz/

[redqueen]

21. I wonder why small business owners

won't demand that large corporations pay their fair share of taxes?

Surely if they were to do that, then the tax burden on small businesses would ease, and they could more easily afford to pay their workers a decent wage.

[LiberalTexan]

27. That's not the vote Kerry is courting

Those small business owners you talk about will probably be voting for Bush anyhow. The vote this is geared to has been laid out in no uncertain words: WOMEN. It's no surprise that Kerry needs the female vote.

[dumpster_baby]

31. small businesses do not create an economy. DEMAND does.

If all the small businesses in America vanished tomorrow, then people would still need to eat, to wash their clothes, to paint their homes, etc. And where there is a demand, then there is an economy. I myself do not have the money and resources to compete against these "small" businesses, but if they all disappeared, I would be able to compete.

I think we need laws that only allow businesses to grow in certain economic sectors (e.g., medicine, science, certain types of manufacturing, etc). But it would be better for our overall standard of living if businesses in general were limited in their resources and size. It would give the individual person more power and a better standard of living. Less "efficient", but efficiency is not everything,.

This paradigm is already in play in the social democracies of the EU. Regulations make it hard for businesses to expand. And as a side effect of these rules and other aspects of the political systems there, these countries' citizens live longer and grow taller.

[KamaAina]

34. Don't Sprawl-Mart and Mickey D's employ more MW workers

than small business?

And why does small business always trend repuke? True, Dems stand up for the consumer and the employee -- but repukes give away the store to the giant corps, who are small business's competitors, threatening to suck the very life from them (especially Sprawl-Mart)! So, shouldn't SB be more independent?

[progressivebydesign]

13. Good thought... BAD political idea..

While it makes sense to low wage voters.. many of whom don't vote anyway, it is a total turn-off to small biz owners... who ARE voters and tend toward Republican, because of their pereceived sensitivity to small biz owners. I think Kerry should have kept this as an initiative once he was elected. While it's a great plan, it's a sure fire flag for small business owners.

Small business owners in America are one of the least represented in these elections... and yet they really drive the economy. I had sent a few emails to the Kerry campaign, urging them to reach out to that voting group.. but obviously they don't have a chance to read their mail, or think they know better.

[klook]

17. Oh, you're right. What was I thinking?

We have to be careful not to piss off the Republican small-business owners by making them pay their workers more than starvation wages. And let's not talk about the environment, or we'll alienate Hummer drivers and power plant workers. And while we're at it, let's not promote public education or we'll lose the home-skoolers and private school parents....

[Pretty_in_CodePink]

18. I am a small business owner

If increased wages are a turn off to small biz owners they should get some perspective. Our employees start at $9.00+ per hour in the cleaning industry, are averaging upwards of $13-$14 per hour with some pushing/exceeding $20. I would be willing to bet they are the highest paid cleaners in the country. They are treated respectfully and their work is appreciated by us, their employer, and our clients. We have minimum turnover and a wait list of prospective employees. This translates into lower expenses for hiring and training and higher quality service for our clients.

This also diminishes our turnover of clients so our marketing expenses are low as we are not continually generating new business.

My husband and I also sleep well at night knowing that we treat people well. On a metaphysical level I believe this has contributed to the abundance my family enjoys. The best example of this is post 9-11 when all our clients freaked out knowing that tourism and travel would be down. The scope in nearly all our contracts was immediately cut. We did not let anyone go or reduce any workers' pay. That was fortunate as within several months most of the work was restored.

[Mnemosyne]

26. thank the universe for those such as yourselves!

[TahitiNut]

29. Fair pay and civilized employment is GOOD BUSINESS.

It's appalling to me that this isn't obvious. One of the reasons WalMart-type businesses have to drive out the other businesses is because they just can't compete over the longer haul with motivated employees and high service satisfaction levels. There's an absolute limit to the mileage tha "cheap" gets -- and WalMart isn't really passing on the "cheap" (it's consumed in profiteering).

[alarimer]

30. good for you

I don't understand why more businesses don't value their employees they way you do; it makes no sense to me. They would attract better, more loyaly employees at all levels.

[St. Jarvitude]

32. Without people like you, I don't want to know what the world would be like

It's so refreshing to see an entrepeneur such as yourself who GETS THE BIG PICTURE!

Cheers! :toast:

[pinto]

51. kudos for a rational real life response and a real life walking the talk.

[Pretty_in_CodePink]

19. Also want to add that I resent the presemption

by so many of our elected officials that small business owners are Republican and support their anti-environmental, anti-worker, anti-tax agendas. I cannot count how many calls I have received from Tom Delay's office with a "special honor" for us.

[redqueen]

22. Hi Pretty_in_CodePink!

Love your posts, love your screen name, and love your business ethics!

A very heartfelt welcome to DU!

:hi:

[JayS]

20. Speaking as an employer...

...I would have to log into my accounting system to see what the minimum wage is; I can never remember it but I never have a need to. I do know that I pay way more than the minimum wage and I also know that I demand more from my employees in how they treat people, from the customer, to our vendors, to fellow employees, to our grounds crew, and so forth. That's not too bad a deal to get paid more to act how you should anyway. These actions make my business worth more so I pay more.

The employees that have been here for some time also make way more than market. To my knowledge, they are not upset about this. I pay more because I want to retain the services of some good and trusted people. It is incredibly expensive for me to hire new people. This is not in terms of money or training but because hiring is such a big risk these days. For some reason, my insurance company takes a dim view of hiring employees that occasionally chop up customers with a battle axe.

Tip: Check your credit reports! More and more employers are using them to try and judge the risks of making a hire.

SEE: http://clarkhoward.com/library/tips/credit_scores.html

Frenzy over credit scores - April 16, 2003
Clark was reading the May issue of Smart Money magazine when he ran across a story entitled, “Fico Frenzy.” It was about the obsession a certain group of American have with their credit scores. If you haven’t heard about the importance of credit scores, you need to pay attention. Your three-digit credit score decides what types of loans you get, what auto and homeowner’s insurance you get, and even the job you may or may not get. The scoring method to get to this number was created by Fair Issac, Co., so they call it a FICO score, but it’s also known as a credit score. Your score ranges from 300 to 850. And some people are trying everything in their power to increase their score. One woman mentioned in the article had a score of 655 and she was trying desperately to inch it upwards. At 655, the woman got a much higher interest rate on loans than did people with a higher score. She transferred some of her balances and immediately when to 677. She then started checking message boards to find out what else she could do. Over a nine- month period, she got her score up to 725 and got much better offers. Some people have scores that are just fine, but they can’t let it go. And, there is no need to obsess if your score is above 720. You are qualified for the best rates with that number. But, if your credit score is 655, the average mortgage rate you’d qualify for is 7.5 percent. With a 720, you qualify for 5.25 percent. If your credit score is not good enough, get the May issue of Smart Money and figure out how to raise your score. Or check in a couple weeks online at smartmoney.com.

[Mnemosyne]

28. Could you explain please,

the reasoning behind this? I used to have perfect credit, but was naive and let my ex-husband destroy it totally.

I am honest and a very hardworker, when I was still able to physically able to work. Does this mean that now I would be refused employment that I qualified for simply because of my credit?

I find that extremely judgemental and reprehensible. Totally unfair!

[JayS]

43. Not all companies are using credit scoring for employment...

...right now. It is getting popular though and I am sure you have heard about using credit scoring for health insurance, home insurance, auto insurance, mortgage and other loans, and so forth. The good news is that as you continue to pay your bills on time your credit score will improve. The website www.clarkhoward.com will have a lot of information about how to handle your FICO score. It would be a good idea for you to get copies of all three of your credit reports and see how much damage is there. There is a small charge for this but soon you will be able to get one for free each year.

[Mnemosyne]

49. thanks JayS! I'll do some checking.

[crossroads]

25. Wonderful! More voters are likely on min wage than own a business...

This will have such a positive effect on the economy... Poor people HAVE to spend their money to live. The wealthy can afford to sock it away!
:eyes:

[napsi]

44. Why are you so bitter?

Why are you so bitter when talking about wealthy people? Do you think that it is wrong for them to have earned that money? Did they in some way steal it from you?

[crossroads]

47. Not bitter, just observant...

My post was factual, I have no malice either way... It is true IMO that people who have the money to begin a business usually have more than min wage workers. Also min wage earners are usually broke because they spend ALL their salary making ends meet. The min agers are doing the spending just to live so all that money is going back into the economy... Just as I originally said...
:eyes:

[KamaAina]

33. That ought to put an end to talk of "Kerry has no message",

"there's no difference between Kerry and Bush*", etc.

[disinfo_guy]

35. good for Kerry!

Great! :)

[goforit]

36. So this is your message of the day, eh?

hmmmmm.......

The clock is ticking Kerry?

When are ya gonna chew on a bigger bone?

[Sivafae]

37. he is so gonna loose votes for that.

mind you, I love the idea, but it just does not get you elected. I thought he may have learned from the past. *shrugs* I guess not.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

38. Am I crazy?

How about enough to pay 12 months of groceries AND 12 months of rent.

Or $9.00+ an hour. Adjusted annually for inflation. Is $72 a day too much to ask? I'm not busting on Kerry, I'm glad he's pushing the issue forward, but let's get realistic. It's the least, and I mean the very least, that America can do.

[Massacure]

39. 9 x 40 x 52 = $18,720 annually.

I think that is fair 600 a month for rent ($7,200), 100 a week for food ($5,200).

That leaves $6320 for other things.

I'm not sure how much tax is taken though.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

42. About $2,000 in taxes on that income.

Scraping by.

Meanwhile, Cheney's taxes were reduced by $80,000 last year.

[nolabels]

48. How about a maximum wage, freakin elitist bastards

The divide between rich and poor has never been so great as it is today.

I am guesing, one day they will wished they had :donut: