Shameful Milestone Reached For Minimum Wage

[Bob Geiger]

Another unfortunate milestone in the reign of George W. Bush and the recently-deposed Republican Congress was reached on Saturday when the federal minimum wage set a new record for the longest period without a raise since its establishment in 1938. As of December 2, the $5.15-per-hour wage rate has remained unchanged for nine years and three months.

Not surprisingly, the prior record also occurred under Republican administrations, when the minimum wage rate remained stagnant from early 1981 until April of 1990 under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

“For nearly a decade, the prices of everyday necessities like gas, food, and prescription drugs have skyrocketed, while the paychecks of minimum wage workers haven’t increased a cent," said Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) over the weekend. "Year after year, the Republican Congress has blocked all attempts to raise the minimum wage, while voting a pay raise for themselves almost every year."

An American working 40 hours per week at the current minimum wage makes only $10,712 a year, which is less than $900 a month to cover housing, health care, food and all other living expenses. And, given that most workers being paid minimum wage do not receive health benefits, that salary would barely cover the cost of buying medical insurance alone, much less other necessities.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the current minimum wage has also deteriorated in real value to the point that buying power for that compensation is at its lowest level since 1955.

“It is next to impossible for hard-working men and women to make ends meet for themselves and their families when they are earning wages established in 1997 and salaries that fall well below the poverty line," said Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) on Saturday, in response to this sad record being set. "The price of housing has increased, the price of higher education has increased, the price of health care and energy has increased. The only thing that hasn’t increased since 1997 is the minimum wage."

Six states overwhelmingly voted in November to raise their minimum wage -- which supersedes the federal wage rate -- and incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have been clear on making a pay hike for working families one of their top priorities when Democrats assume control in the 110th Congress next month.

And Kennedy, who has long been the Senator fighting hardest to give workers a raise -- seeing his legislation to accomplish that killed three times by the GOP leadership in the last two years alone -- will be the new chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and will focus like a laser on the issue from the first day of the new Congress.

"If there’s one message from last month’s election that emerged loud and clear, it’s that no one who works for a living should have to live in poverty," said Kennedy. "The American people have spoken, and the new Congress will listen. When we convene in January, domestic priority number one will be to give minimum wage workers the long-overdue raises they deserve.”

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

[Captain Hilts]

1. This is a crime. Link raises to: congressional pay raises, The Economist's Big Mac Index...

Whatever it takes.

Why aren't out-going senators-congressmembers with NOTHING to lose going berserk over this?

[KKKarl is an idiot]

2. ..

Those outgoing men want an opportunity to come back & break their previous record of not raising the minimum wage.

[Larry Allen]

10. MookieWilson is right.

How many times has congresional pay been raised over the same period? About every year I would imagine. Fixing congressional pay to 12 times the minimum wage should become part of our progressive manifesto.

[ninkasi]

3. It is, indeed, a shameful milestone

It seems that the wealthier the Republicans get, the stingier they get. Bush and his rubber-stamp Congress couldn't slash the wealthy's taxes fast enough, or far enough, but they still begrudge a hard-working person the common decency of paying enough to live on. I believe that not only will Bush go down as the worst president in American history, the Republican dominated Congress will join him on the list of worsts.

[madrchsod]

4. 7.2 cents average raise since 1938

"when it rains it rains pennies from heaven"

[slampoet]

5. People wonder why my generation is pissed off.

You would be too if you spent half your life (18 years) w/o a wage boost.

I'm a college grad and my last yearly raise was 27 cents.

[Dr.Phool]

6. I went 9 years without a raise during the Reagan-Bush I regimes.

We were union, but we were governed under the Railway Labor Act which prevented us from going on strike. And the company failed to bargain in good faith.

Coincidently, Chimp Sr.'s Secretary of the Interior's daughter was the mediator assigned to our case.

But, even then, we were making substatially more than minimum wage. But, it was 9 long years.

[drdtroit]

7. Hard to pull one's self up,

when you can't even afford the freakin', mythical bootstraps.

:patriot:

[Ninja Jordan]

8. Should be raised to $6.50 (nm)

[sutz12]

9. The poverty line for a family of 3 right now is about $7.35

If it is indexed, it should be to the poverty line, IMO.

[gorfle]

11. Why stop there?

Why should we raise the bar only to allow one to meet the POVERTY level?

Let's raise the bar so that all can enjoy the fruits that the rich are enjoying as a result of all those poverty workers! If it was up to me, I'd raise the wage to at LEAST $20/hour. That's about $42,000 a year. Now a guy could raise a family and maybe even ENJOY some of life on a salary like that.

If we have a chance to raise the minimum wage, let's not shoot for a new low. Let's cut ourselves a REAL slice of the pie!

[Mikey929]

13. Living Wage, not minimum

Why talk about a minimum wage? Do we talk about minimum health care or minimum environmental protections or minimum civil rights? No! These are rights, people, not suggestions for how to better our world. Rights - by definition - cannot have an acceptable minimum. You either have it or you don't.

So let's say the mimimum wage is raised to $7.00. That's still $14,000 per year, which is poverty, no matter what the government says. So this whole idea of a minimum wage is meaningless. We need to guarantee a wage that ensures a worker can provide for his or her family at a decent level. It doesn't matter if the worker is a college grad designing computers, or the drop-out who cleans the toilets. All work is honorable and deserves just compensation. By agreeing to a minimum wage, we are basically saying that a whole spectrum of workers can be tossed into poverty just because they don't have an education or marketable skills. Is that fair?

Some of these rich business owners need to see that not everyone gets to drive BMW's and live in a mansion. If the workers who make your rich life possible aren't living a comfortable life, then the workers need the government to step in and take corrective action. General Welfare!

[gorfle]

14. Right on!

If this country has hundreds of billions of dollars to spend for wars, then surely it has money to ensure that everyone can have a living wage! I think it would be absurd to raise the miminum wage to any less than $30,000 per year, which is about $14.40 an hour.

If we are going to raise the minimum wage, I wouldn't go any lower than $15/hour. Why are we willing to settle for so little?

[newyawker99]

15. Hi Mikey929!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[IWantAChange]

12. GOP = Family values? I'd think a 'value' should be ability to provide for ones family?

Amazing to me that Joe 6 pack doesn't realize who his true enemy is. That the MSM hasn't painted the GOP as the robber barons that they are proves to me that the 'liberal press' is a myth.