Most Americans Would Raise Minimum Wage

Do you favour or oppose Congress passing legislation that would raise the minimum wage?

Favour 83%
Oppose 14%
No opinion 3%

Source: Gallup / CNN / USA Today
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,011 American adults, conducted from Nov. 7 to Nov. 10, 2005. Margin of error is 3 per cent.

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/10474

They won't want that.

There's this book called "The Collapse of Globalism", in which the author defines globalism by saying "its central tenet is that civilisation should be seen through economics, and economics alone."

I would modify that definition by saying that "civilisation should be geared to whatever maximizes the profits of large, politically connected corporations and this alone."

Here's an article about it.
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/books/story/0,10595,1534184,00.html

Anyway, the minimum wage hasn't been raised since 1996. I read somewhere that we've already gone the 2nd longest period without raising the minimum wage. I think if we reach 11 years without raising it, then this will be an all-time record (but not one to be proud of).

In the year 2000, Clinton tried to raised the minimum wage, but the Republicans overloaded the bill with tax cuts for the rich. So, Clinton had to veto it.

On the bright side, Florida in the 2004 elections passed a ballot initiative which raised the minimum wage and then indexed to inflation (a good idea). Unfortunately, they only raised the minimum wage to something like 6.50 / per hour.

Ralph Nader thinks we could raised it to $10/hour without hurting the economy. Marshall Brain has an article about this here.
http://marshallbrain.com/etq-double.htm ..."What if we doubled the minimum wage?"

www.StopGlobalism.com       www.VOIDnow.org

Anyway, the minimum wage hasn't been raised since 1996. I read somewhere that we've already gone the 2nd longest period without raising the minimum wage. I think if we reach 11 years without raising it, then this will be an all-time record (but not one to be proud of).

That agrees pretty closely with a Department of Labor table at http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/chart.htm . According to it, the prior longest period was 9 years and 3 months, from January 1, 1981 to April 1, 1990. The current period started on September 1, 1997 so we will equal the prior record on December 1, 2006.

In any case, the following graph shows the minimum wage since 1940, in current dollars and real (corrected for inflation) dollars:



The actual numbers and sources are at http://home.att.net/~rdavis2/minwage.html . As can be seen, the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage is at its lowest level since 1949. It reached a high of $8.69 in 2004 dollars in 1968 and has now sunk over 40 percent, to $5.15.

In the year 2000, Clinton tried to raised the minimum wage, but the Republicans overloaded the bill with tax cuts for the rich. So, Clinton had to veto it.

On the bright side, Florida in the 2004 elections passed a ballot initiative which raised the minimum wage and then indexed to inflation (a good idea). Unfortunately, they only raised the minimum wage to something like 6.50 / per hour.

We should likewise index the national minimum wage to inflation. As the above graph shows, inflation tends to rise slower than average wages. For this reason, businesses should be able to handle such a rise in the minimum wage. If extraordinary circumstances warrant, the Congress can always delay a schedule rise. In any case, that would be greatly preferable to the current situation under which we have turned the wages of our lowest paid workers into a political football.

because people who actually get the minimum wage are the same people who are going to spend every dime they get their hands on, thus creating demand for goods and services that both small business and corporations are going to have to hire more people to produce. That's how the money pump works, folks, from the bottom up. Fattening the top just chokes it all off. Once wealth accumulates at the very top, it just sits there. Oh, they "invest," but mostly that's a shell game, transferring numbers among each other, buying nothing and producing nothing.

Raising the minimum wage would also hike the amount of money going into both OASDI and income tax, thus reducing the deficit. Oh, the deficit won't go away until the sainted rich are once again forced to cough up and pay for the special privileges this country has afforded them, but revenues will increase.

Let's see, people doing better and becoming more hopeful about their futures, business increasing forcing an increase in employment and increasing revenues to a government that is in fiscal crisis.

Just what was the downside again? Wailing businessmen? They wail about everything, ignore them.

to raise the minimum wage?

I know the head of the US Chamber of Commerce recently said they support a "foreign guest worker" program to ensure an adequate supply of labor. He claimed their primary motivation was not to hold down wages.

Since the Senate is going to debate guest worker programs next month, wouldn't that be a good time to bring up mimium wage legislation?

Perhaps someone like Senator Feinstein could introduce a bill raising the minumum wage to $10 an hour. Then we will see the response from the US Chamber, and if they are sincere about "not wanting cheap labor".