Yesterday, thousands of fast-food workers across the country demonstrated for a livable wage. I admire them for putting their jobs on the line to hold their strike for better wages, because far too many of ten are forced to work for poverty wages (at or near the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour) or have no job at all. They were doing what all of us should be doing -- trying to keep this issue of poverty wages in the public conscience. We simply cannot let it be ignored by the politicians.
These workers were asking for a wage of $15.00 an hour, and I agree that the minimum wage should be at or near that figure. However, I doubt most Americans would support a doubling of the minimum wage. But polls have shown that a clear majority of Americans would support raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, and we need to put pressure on our politicians to raise the minimum wage to at least that level (and tie it to the rate of inflation, so we don't have to fight this same battle in a few years).
It is the congressional Republicans who are blocking a minimum wage raise at this time. Some of them want the wage to remain at the current level, and some of them would abolish the minimum wage completely. They have refused to allow any bill to raise the minimum wage to reach the floor of the House of Representatives, and have filibustered the bill in the Senate.
They still cling to the old argument that raising the minimum wage would cause many layoffs, because businesses cannot afford to pay a higher wage. That argument has already been shown to be a fallacy. Raising the minimum wage doesn't cost jobs -- it improves the economy by giving most people more money to spend (which actually would help businesses increase their profits). And it would have another effect that those same Republicans say they want -- it would take many people off the rolls of government social programs, because the higher wage would lift them out of poverty.
The truth is that the United States has one of the lowest minimum wages among all developed countries (as a percentage of the median wage). It is time to fix that -- and fixing it would be good for workers, businesses, the economy, and the government. We could start fixing this by the way we vote in November -- vote against any politician (of any party) who does not support raising the minimum wage to at least $10.10 an hour.
It is a national disgrace that workers with a full-time job are being paid a wage that keeps them in poverty. That is just wrong. Let's fix it -- NOW!
