Minimum Wage Anniversary

A sad anniversary is coming up shortly: if Congress does not act soon the last few years will represent the longest period ever that the minimum wage has not been adjusted. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a report here: Nine Years of Neglect

This is grim reading. Since the last increase in the minimum wage food prices have risen 23%, housing costs have gone up 29% and medical care costs 43% more. So the value of the wage rate has been diminished drastically. Adjusted for inflation the minimum wage is now at its lowest value since the mid 1950’s.

This is what I mean when I rant against the Republican party: this neglect of the minimum wage fits a pattern of class warfare directed first against the poor, and when there is no more to be gained in that quarter, against the middle class.

It is shameful that something as simple as raising the minumum wage is treated with such contempt by the Republicans. Since Reagan they have systematically worked to undermine the social underpinnings of post war America. Their evident intent is to push the country back to the social conditions of the 1920’s. When, as the report states, the average CEO makes, before lunch on the first work day of the year, more than a worker on the minumum wage makes in an entire year, the country has its priorities wrong.

What happened to family values? Or was that just a sham? Don’t answer that … we all know already. The better question is: what do we do about it?