I’m with Ezra on this one. This post by Amy Sullivan is really striking a nerve with me :

Earlier this week, senate Democrats — and a handful of Republican moderates (or, as I like to call them, soon-to-be-independents) — managed to insert $6 billion in child care subsidies into the welfare reauthorization bill. And now they’re fighting the good fight again, holding up the welfare measure until they get a vote on increasing the minimum wage.

Do you know what the federal minimum wage is? $5.15 per hour. And do you know how long the minimum wage has been at that level? Since 1997. Yes, that’s right — for the past SEVEN years. I thought $5.15 was a typo when I read today’s news stories because that’s what we bumped the minimum wage up to when I was still working in the senate and that was a really long time ago.

A worker making $5.15 per hour in a full-time job, working every single week of the year, makes about $10,000 each year. And that’s without paying for health care, which doesn’t often come standard with low-wage jobs. And it’s definitely without paying for child care, which is the number one reason for workplace instability among low-income women. Other western nations solved this problem a long time ago by instituting state-subsidized child care for everyone. We’re not even asking for that. We’re asking for a puny $6 billion to help out the poorest of the poor working mothers.

And the response from across the aisle? Fine. But you can’t have that and a higher minimum wage. Because that would be greedy.

Ten thousands dollars per year doesn’t buy much. But it buys even less now than it did seven years ago. Our total lack of support for low-wage workers in this country is a travesty. So when it comes to deciding to support the party that stands up for low-wage workers or the party that makes them choose between feeding their kids and providing safe care for their kids, the answer is easy.

The indifference that the Republican party shows toward the working poor makes me sick. I’d love to see Bush, Cheney, DeLay and the rest try to live for a year on minimum wage. I doubt Junior would last a week.