The Cheap Labor Conservative Who Cried Wolf
I’ve noticed the idea of increasing the minimum wage has been popping up recently. Awesome idea that’s long overdue, so you know what that means. Endless whining from conservatives about small businesses being forced to close their doors and layoffs for the people who we’re trying to help. To listen to them, you’d think a modest increase in take home pay for the working poor is the tipping point that lead us all into the gutter. Put aside the fact that these supposed advocates for the poor and small business owners only seem to show their love when it’s an issue that would cost their campaign contributors money, here’s the real reason why these arguments are garbage.
The Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938 and set a minimum wage of $0.25 per hour. Here’s what FDR said in one of his fireside chats shortly after signing the bill :
After many requests on my part the Congress passed a Fair Labor Standards Act, commonly called the Wages and Hours Bill. That Act—applying to products in interstate commerce-ends child labor, sets a floor below wages and a ceiling over hours of labor.Except perhaps for the Social Security Act, it is the most far-reaching, far-sighted program for the benefit of workers ever adopted here or in any other country. Without question it starts us toward a better standard of living and increases purchasing power to buy the products of farm and factory.
Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day, who has been turning his employees over to the Government relief rolls in order to preserve his company’s undistributed reserves, tell you—using his stockholders’ money to pay the postage for his personal opinions-/that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry.
Since then the federal minimum wage has been raised twenty five times. Yet if Republican doomsday scenarios are to be believed, does that mean we’ve had 25 economic crises? What about all of the state-specific minimum wage laws? Have more progressive states like California been bleeding jobs due to their fairer wages? We’ve had a minimum wage in this country for almost seventy years, so why are we still dealing with the save executive crybaby act?
13 comments »
Copy link for RSS feed for comments on this post
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
This should be campaign no brainer. My Pastor (UCC) actually chose this issue on Sunday to shame people into supporting it. It is shameful that that it hasn’t been raised in about 8 years.
Comment by JM — April 12, 2006 @ 6:34 am
This should be a campaign no brainer. My Pastor (UCC) actually chose this issue on Sunday to shame people into supporting it. It is shameful that that it hasn’t been raised in about 8 years.
Comment by JM — April 12, 2006 @ 6:35 am
Sorry, comment posting can be very frustrating…
Comment by JM — April 12, 2006 @ 6:36 am
I continue to be intrigued by the maximum ratio in addition to the minimum wage. Require corporations to keep the ratio of the salary of their highest paid worker (including executives) to the salary of their lowest paid worker at or below, say, 20. The board wants to pay the CEO $1,000,000? Fine, you have to raise the desk clerk’s wage to the equivalent of $50,000. What, you can only afford to pay the clerk $16,000? Fine, the CEO gets $320,000.
Meanwhile, you own a business with ten employees and can only afford to pay yourself $30K a year? Okay, you’re only bound by the minimum wage, which has been kept affordable to your microbiz.
Obviously the system can be exploited, but so can the current one. Executives hate it, though. Ben & Jerry’s had the maximum ratio in their charter, but dropped it because all the CEO candidates they tried to hire refused to play along.
Comment by Cris — April 12, 2006 @ 7:04 am
Chris Rock had a great quote: “If someone’s paying you minimum wage, it’s their way of saying ‘I’d pay you less if I could.’”
The minimum wage really needs to be tied to the cost of living, so that you can’t put it off for years and years. It needs to be raised every year.
The dance the anti-minimum wage hike people do is so disingenuous: On the one hand, they argue that raising the minimum wage will force businesses to go under; on the other hand they say that very few people make minimum wage, and the only people do are teenagers who live with their parents, so it won’t do anything to alleviate poverty. Which is it?
Comment by dAVE — April 12, 2006 @ 8:45 am
I own a small business with ten employees. We start untrained people at $8.50/hour and presently our lowest paid employee makes $9.50/hour. All I can say is, we’re still here. And I also must admit that if that employee had kids or a house, he wouldn’t be able to survive on his paycheck. Also, this is Kentucky, where the cost of living is much lower than it is in many places.
Comment by KyCole — April 12, 2006 @ 11:07 am
$.25 seems like a meager wage, even back in 1938. I went to the economic history service website and calculated what 2004s $5.15 would be worth in 1938. According to the unskilled labor wage series, it was worth $0.18 in 1938!
It would seem executives reap subtantial rewards from crying wolf, which would suggest that the American public is not quite as savvy as the villagers of Aesop’s time :-/
Comment by Enterik — April 12, 2006 @ 1:13 pm
A friend of mine has a cafe/store at which he pays all his employees a “living wage” which in Baltimore means about $10 an hour or more. He’s not going out of business any time soon, either.
Comment by jwer — April 13, 2006 @ 5:44 am
My problem with raising the minimum wage is that it’s so often touted as a cure. People aren’t making enough, and the minimum isn’t enough to live on, so just increase it! I agree that it needs an increase, but it’s not a total solution.
An increase in the minimum wage means an increase in the cost of doing business. I’m not saying “the poor corporations.” My point is that when costs go up, prices go up (I know grocery chains demand store pricing which brings in a certain margin for their company overall), so the cost of living goes up. The minimum wage also only helps people at the bottom of the scale. Not the “lower end.” The bottom. Businesses which feel comfortable paying people only the minimum wage are not going to give raises to people who are earning at or above the now-altered minimum wage. So the cost of living has gone up for this group while their wage has not, ie the real value of their wage is now lessened. So if you’re on the low end, but not at the very bottom, this is problematic.
It would seem that there needs to be another factor in the equation, more than just a raise in the minimum wage, to protect the rest of those at the bottom of the scale.
Comment by Esme — April 14, 2006 @ 3:02 am
Last night I saw a spot for Oprah’s show about “trying to live on $5 an hour”… I tend to agree that raising the MW is something that needs to be done, not something that will necessarily solve anything, but I think you’d be surprised how much more involved people would be willing to be if they thought there was any point whatever, i.e., if they thought that the government cared about them AT ALL.
This is one of the main reasons that Oprah, who doesn’t really do much besides raise awareness of obvious issues, is so popular; she gives the very strong impression that she cares, even if she actually doesn’t.
Comment by jwer — April 14, 2006 @ 5:40 am
We need to stop talking about a minimum wage and start talking about a living wage.
Comment by Paul -V- — April 26, 2006 @ 2:46 pm
This post inspired me to write a new take on Aesop’s fable:
The tale of the Cheap Labor Conservative who cried wolf.
Thanks.
Comment by Paul -V- — May 10, 2006 @ 6:40 am
GOODDAY PASTOR,
I GREAT YOU IN THE NAME OF GOD I KNOW THIS MAIL MIGHT COME TO YOU AS A SUPRISE BUT TAKE IT SIRIURSE AND TREAT WITH LOVE AS CHRIST LOVE THE CHURCH.
I AM PASTOR CHRIS OYAKHILOMEN OF BELIVERS LOVE WORD ALSO KNOWN AS CHRIST EMBASSY, I’M REQUESTING FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE IN AN ONGONG PROJECT IN CHRIST EMBASSY NIGERIA, WE ARE CURRENTLY BUILDING AN ORPHANAGE HOME FOR THE LESS PREVILEG IN AFRICA WHICH HEAD QUETERS WILL BE IN NIGERIA.
I WANT TO RAISE FUNDS FROM ALL PASTORS AND CLERGY THAT GOD MIGHT INSTRUCT TO HELP EATHER IN CASH OR KIND . I’M A PASTOR AND SAVANT OF GOD BUT I CAN’T DO IT ALL ALLONE , BECAUSE A TREE CAN NOT MAKE A FOREST, AND AS THE HOLY BIBLE SAYS IN 1ST CORITHIANS CHAPTER 13:I-6 THOUGH I SPESK WITH THE TONGUES OF MEN AND OF ANGELS AND HAVE NOT CHARITY, I AM BECOME AS SOUNDING BRASS OR A TINKING CYMBAL,v-2 AND THOUGH I HAVE THE GIFT OF PROPHECY AND UNDERSTAND ALL MYSTIES AND ALL KNOWLEDGE; AND THOUGH I HAVE ALL FAITH SO THAT I COULD REMOVE MOUNTAIN AND HAVE NOT CHARITY, I’M NOTHING.v-3 AND THOUGH I BESTOW ALL MY GOODS TO FEED THE POOR AND THOUGH I GIVE MY BODY TO BE BURNED AND HAVE NOT CHARITY IT PROFITETH ME NOTHING.v-4 CHARITY SUFFERETH LONG AND IS KIND; CHARITY VOUTETH NOT ITSELF, IS NOT PUFFED UP.
GOD WILL BLESS YOU FOR ANY FUND RAIS FOR THIS GODLY PROJECT THAT WILL GO A LONG WAY IN HELPING US TO GROW ORPHANS IN THE NAME AND TO THE GLORY OF GOD, YOUR QUIK RESPONSE TO THIS MAIL WILL HELP US IN JESUS NAME. AMEN
PASTOR CHRIS OYAKHILOMEN.
Comment by PASTOR CHRIS — May 22, 2006 @ 6:51 pm