A ray of truth in a sea of CW darkness
by David Atkins
Sure, it’s a press release. But it’s still awesome:
Washington DC – Business owners applauded the introduction today of legislation to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time since 2009. U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (IA) and Rep. George Miller (CA) introduced the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, which would gradually raise the federal minimum wage from its current $7.25 an hour to $10.10, then provide for annual increases linked to the rising cost of living. The Fair Minimum Wage Act would also gradually raise the minimum wage for tipped workers for the first time in more than 20 years from an abysmal $2.13 an hour at present to 70 percent of the regular minimum wage.
“At Costco, we know that paying employees good wages makes good sense for business,” said Craig Jelinek, Costco’s President and CEO. “We pay a starting hourly wage of $11.50 in all states where we do business, and we are still able to keep our overhead costs low. An important reason for the success of Costco’s business model is the attraction and retention of great employees. Instead of minimizing wages, we know it’s a lot more profitable in the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximize employee productivity, commitment and loyalty. We support efforts to increase the federal minimum wage.”
“The biggest problem for Main Street businesses is lack of customer demand,” said Business for a Fair Minimum Wage Director Holly Sklar. “Minimum wage increases have been so little and so late that workers making the current $7.25 an hour – just $15,080 a year — have less buying power than minimum wage workers in 1956, and far less than they had at the minimum wage’s $10.59 high point in 1968, adjusted for inflation. Corporate profits are at their highest since 1950, as a percentage of national income, while the share going to employees is near its low point. We can’t build a strong economy on a falling wage floor. Let’s raise America by raising the minimum wage.”
This stuff isn’t that complicated. This debate should have been settled in the 1940s. And it was, by and large.
But I think we know what happened. In the late 60s and early 70s, a bunch of white men (and no small number of white women) freaked out that the women and the blacks were getting a little too uppity. Business saw sexism and racism as a good wedge to drive between segments of the working class. An entire generation of pundits who cut their cut under Nixon and Reagan bought into the notion that America was a fundamentally conservative country, rather than one experiencing a generational hysterical fit over loss of white male privilege.
The people who actually work for a living haven’t won this battle yet. In fact, things still look pretty dim. But we will. It’s just a matter of time. The old wedges don’t work so well anymore.
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