I never thought raising the minimum wage would make me feel dirty

So, an increase in the minimum wage is, at long last, all but in the bag — something I’ve strongly favored for years.  So why does it make me feel so dirty?

The answer, of course, is the obscene price we’re paying for it: a price that’s been working out to about 100 American soldiers a month.

First the good news:

(AP) Minimum wage increase to become reality

After a decade-long wait, America’s lowest-paid workers saw Congress poised Thursday to increase the federal minimum wage by $2.10. For years, the idea of increasing the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour has been stalled by partisan bickering between Republicans and Democrats.

*  *  *

We’re very hopeful we’re going to see finally that increase in the next couple of days,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., the chairman of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee.

This would be the first change since the minimum wage went from $4.75 to $5.15 on Sept. 1, 1997, under former President Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress.

Now for the bad news: The only reason congressional Democrats are getting this done is because they’ve attached it to the Iraq funding bill.  Yup, the very same bill in which they are selling out both the voters who elected them and our soldiers by giving Bush a blank check — you know, the one they said they’d never give him — on continuing the war in Iraq.

Call me ungrateful if you must, but somehow I can’t take much pleasure out of a minimum wage increase bought at the price of brave young American blood.

3 Responses to “I never thought raising the minimum wage would make me feel dirty”

  1. Wye Knot Says:

    Very few prices were worth raising the minimum wage, an no price was worth stopping the war.

    Why?

    It’s scandalous that the minimum wage has not been changed in such a long time, but I am extremely suspicious of what good it will be. Simple economics says that if wages go up, profits go down. If profits go down, prices go up. So those who got the raise are now paying more with that little raise they got.

    Meanwhile, small businesses working on a very tight margin must lay off workers. Even that may not be enough to keep them going under. Either way, now there are folks with no wage, miimum or otherwise.

    So, some folks are a little better off, but most are right where they were or worse off, AND we still have an illegal, immoral, financially and moraly draining war.

    There’s no excuse for this. Our legislators have ignored us and now bear the same mark of “Traitor” as those who have sold us out for the past 6 years.

    Anybody want to start a new party?

  2. Again Says:

    Simple economics says that if wages go up, profits go down.

    Minimum Wage:
    “The costs and benefits of minimum wage laws are not fully understood”

    simple economics doesn’t seem to fit here - because profits can only be made if there are customers and the western economy is not only dependent on millionaires - so there is another consequence of rising wages: rising demands in mass markets…

    and not only for the SMBs…

    “A 2000 survey by Dan Fuller and Doris Geide-Stevenson reports that of a sample of 308 American Economic Association economists, 45.6% fully agreed with the statement, “a minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers”, 27.9% agreed with provisos, and 26.5% disagreed. The authors of this study also reweighted data from a 1990 sample to show that at that time 62.4% of academic economists agreed with the statement above, while 19.5% agreed with provisos and 17.5% disagreed.[30]”

    again, seems not to be that simple…

  3. Larkrise Says:

    It not only makes one feel dirty, it makes me feel nauseated. It is a cheap trick. A dirty deal. A crock of s–t! The Democrats are going to end up doing a Lady MacBeth on this one: “Out! Out! Damned Spot!”

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