The chances of the federal minimum wage of a paltry $5.15 per hour increasing anytime soon doesn’t appear to be on a near horizon. Sen. Edward Kennedy introduced legislation to raise it by over $2, but it was beaten back by the conservative majority because, they say, it would unduly harm small and mid-sized businesses.
I have a very terse response to such rationale – Tough!
I’ve always been flabbergasted by this line of reasoning. From my humble perspective, if any business can’t stay afloat by paying its workers enough money to subsist, then such businesses have NO business being IN business.
Think about the rationale a little more deeply. What it states is that, in order for a particular enterprise to turn a profit AND allow the owners/managers to meet THEIR needs, it must concurrently under-value and underpay its workers so they cannot meet their BASIC needs. It is saying, in essence, that one group’s needs – the owners/managers – matter, while the workers needs don’t.
To drive home my point, let’s alter this formula by replacing the idea of a minimum wage with the concept of slavery. The conservative rationale would then read something like this: We can’t abolish slavery because it would unduly harm the financial bottom line of small and mid-sized businesses. Such enterprises can’t be expected to turn a profit if they are forced to PAY their workers.
If it were framed in these stark terms, I genuinely believe far more people would be outraged. While minimum wage workers are certainly not slaves, they ARE, in reality, not that far above them.
People trying to subsist on a minimum wage that falls BELOW the subsistence level are more likely to make use of public assistance and food banks, forgo needed medical care or seek it and not be able to pay for it (which increases medical costs for everyone) and, for some, to turn to a life of crime – all the things that conservatives rail against.
The typical conservative argument against raising minimum wage is that all it leads to is inflation. If you have to pay the people making minimum wage more then you have to charge more, meaning everyone has to make more thus lowering the value of the dollar. I don’t know how much I believe this but at the same time I don’t think that raising minimum wage will solve the problem instantly.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know what could solve the problem though, maybe subsidies, maybe heavier taxation of higher income families in exchange for more help for low income families. I think the latter has a better chance of working.
-Kensh_O
Could there be an alternative solution here? If the "minimum wage" is insufficient, might the recipient be inspired to strive for something more, through education, application, bettering of oneself?
ReplyDeleteKensh_O writes, "If you have to pay the people making minimum wage more then you have to charge more, meaning everyone has to make more thus lowering the value of the dollar."Trey responds...
ReplyDeleteWhether or not the minimum wage rises, consumer prices STILL go up. Over the last 7 years -- a period when the federal minimum wage has remained the same -- prices on all sorts of things have continued their upward climb. A higher minimum wage would mean that some workers could keep pace with inflation.
Anonymous writes, "If the "minimum wage" is insufficient, might the recipient be inspired to strive for something more, through education, application, bettering of oneself?"Trey responds...
As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. aptly pointed out, it's difficult for some people to raise themselves up by the boot straps if they have no boots.
Further, America is fast becoming a "service" society. Many such jobs pay at or near the minimum wage. We will always need people to work at these jobs. So, shouldn't such people earn enough to get by?