We Need Better Labor Laws — History Shows Why

Granadaman notes that Con­gress have given them­selves $30,000 in pay increases since the last time they increased the fed­eral min­i­mum wage.

Com­pare the fed­eral poverty guide­lines to the fed­eral min­i­mum wage of $5.15 an hour, and you’ll soon real­ize that a sin­gle par­ent mak­ing min­i­mum wage and work­ing forty hours per week, with no hol­i­days or vaca­tion, grosses less per year ($10,712) than the offi­cial poverty level. Before taxes. Even in states, such as lib­eral Mass­a­chu­setts, where the wage is higher ($6.25/hr.), a minimum-wage earner barely tops the poverty level.

Admit­tedly, I do not buy the argu­ment against rais­ing the min­i­mum wage (exam­ple). My rea­son­ing these days, how­ever, is com­plex – and prob­a­bly wrong, but what the hell. While it seems that increases in min­i­mum wage may hurt the poor­est of the poor by keep­ing them from being able to enter or re-enter the job mar­ket, politi­cians have shown very lit­tle will to make it worth­while for the poor­est of the poor to get off wel­fare and into the work­force and per­ma­nent hous­ing (rather than home­less shel­ters), even with welfare-to-work. If solv­ing poverty were as easy as hik­ing the min­i­mum wage to a “liv­ing wage,” they’d do it. After all, who wouldn’t want “solved poverty” on their resume? But, we’d prob­a­bly see more jobs go south of the bor­der, too.

Regard­less, and return­ing to the point I’m so cir­cum­lo­cu­tiously attempt­ing to make: We don’t need a bet­ter min­i­mum wage law, we need bet­ter labor laws. We need to ensure that those at the bot­tom of the eco­nomic lad­der have ade­quate health­care and ade­quate shel­ter. We need to ensure that if we’re to use the phrase “eco­nomic lad­der,” that it actu­ally leads up to bet­ter pay­ing and more respon­si­ble jobs. We need to make sure no child – no per­son – has to live in a “home­less shel­ter” with no hope of ever hav­ing a per­ma­nent, “nor­mal” place of res­i­dence. We don’t need a min­i­mum wage law, we need a min­i­mum quality-of-life law. Not a 10 year plan to end home­less­ness, a right-now plan to end homelessness.

Any ideas?

At any rate, one last thought: the num­ber of mil­lion­aires is increas­ing.