The single biggest drag on the American economy

is the fact that minimum wage hasn't been raised in years.

All Businesses understand that in general, all costs go up over time - the cost of property taxes goes up, the cost of utilities go up, the cost of insurance goes up, the cost of raw materials goes up, the cost of executive compensation and stock options go up, in fact, everything in the world goes up with one exception - the cost of LABOR!!!

The American worker sees all the same increases that business does - the cost of their insurance, the cost of their housing, the cost of their taxes, the cost of their utilities, but strangely, they do NOT see an increase in their wages.

A raise in minimum ages acts as a drive upward for all wages (for those of who who are sitting out there thinking what difference does this make to me?). It also has a large inpact on HOURLY workers - the giant engine that drives the American economy. All you silly middle managers and executives don't realize that it is all the cooks and clerks and laborers and retail workers and service sector that are carrying this whole illusory economy right now on the backs of their undercompensated labor.

Wake up! We don't have well-paid factory or manufacturing jobs any longer - those jobs sustained the great rise of the American middle class. If we move to a service economy, we will need to compensate those workers with a livable wage.

Imagine you have just lost your cushy middle management job and there aren't any more like it where you live. You are 46 and you have a mortgage, a car payment and 2 high school kids. The only job you can find is working at Home Depot for $6.35 an hour to start.

If you think this is a myth - you are wrong.

Worse yet, I find an expensive education to be worthless. Not really, I make wonderful conversation.

I hear they are hiring in Bangalore...

unemployment (from my last round of underemployment) ends in January. Then I figure I have about three more months to find a modest job before I move into my car permanently.

Of course, the music biz could pick up.

The federal minimum wage is $5.15. How does Ohio get away with breaking the minimum wage law?

Positions that pay by tips do have a lower rate. but you have to compensated to at least $5.15

Labor costs are increasing as well as compensation.

http://www.bls.gov/bls/wages.htm


If you think this is a myth - you are wrong.

I've been there, 46 years old, a mortgage, a car payment and 2 high school kids, also. I had a great management job, nice income, I was let go. I thought just as you did. I took three jobs to make ends meet.

It took me 18 months, but I found a similar job in my field, not quite as much income, but far less pressure.

Hang in there. You will find the right job

to raise the minimum wage to at least $30 buck an hour.

That'll jumpstart the economy!

have a slice o' pie, if you have time

would be if the minimum wage were tied to inflation, or a cost of living index - just like SS increases. Why should Mwage be any different?

Take some kind of arbitrary benchmark to start from like the beginning of a decade or an election year. Take a late date so as to not make it too startling like it would be if you took it from the last date minimum was set. So take the minimum wage of 5.15 from the year 2000. What should it be today if you just pegged it against plain old ordinary inflation?