An Unlivable Minimum - CommonDreams.org

The Democratic presidential candidates were asked in the CNN/YouTube debate if they were willing to work in the White House for the national minimum wage. Senators Christopher Dodd and Joe Biden said no.

Dodd whined, “I have two young daughters who I’m trying to educate. . . . I don’t think I could live on the minimum wage.” Biden moaned, “My net worth is $70,000 to $150,000. That’s what happens you get elected at 29. I couldn’t afford to stay in the Congress for the minimum wage. But if I get a second job, I’d do it.”

If Dodd, first elected to the Senate 27 years ago, and Biden, first elected to the Senate 35 years ago, say they cannot work for four years at the minimum wage, that is a huge hint to the minimal meaning in this week’s raise from $5.15 to $5.85. It was frozen in place by Congress for a decade. It will go to $6.55 next summer and to $7.25 the summer after that.

But it will remain far short of the real value it had a half-century ago. In 1956, according to the Economic Policy Institute, the minimum wage was 56 percent of the national average wage. The value shriveled to 31 percent last year. But EPI analyst Liana Fox said that even with the increases, she projects the $7.25 will be only 41 percent of the national average wage of $17.86.

The real value of the $7.25 an hour in 2009 will only be $6.42. Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, concurred with somewhat different numbers, projecting a drop in value down to $6.93.

“This increase is very modest,” Fox said diplomatically over the telephone. “People are still going to be scraping by for rent, transportation, healthcare, and food. This still would be below basic necessities.”

Noah Berger, executive director of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, projects that the Commonwealth’s $8 an hour minimum wage in 2008 will rapidly lose its real value as well, falling back to $6.83 by 2013 if there are no changes. Wage fairness advocate Beth Shulman, author of “The Betrayal of Work,” said even if the minimum wage were $9 or $10 an hour and indexed for inflation, which many policy experts and the Democratic candidates advocate as a meaningful bare minimum, “No one can live on that in America.”

The Economic Policy Institute calculates that a “basic” family budget for one parent and one child in Boston should be nearly $50,000. That assumes a rent of $1,266 a month. Nearly a third of Massachusetts residents live below that line. The Democratic candidates know this at some level. During the same debate, Bill Richardson, the New Mexico governor, said he would establish a national minimum wage for teachers at $40,000.

Even the most cursory comparisons betray how outrageous the minimum wage is. One hour of $5.85 minimum-wage work gets you just two gallons of gasoline. The fact that the affluent can mindlessly drop $5.85 for a lunch-time sandwich or a latte and muffin at Starbucks makes us forget that the working poor have to work (based on the lowest prices for these items at my neighborhood Shaw’s supermarket) approximately:

Half an hour for a 5-pound bag of white rice.

More than half an hour to afford a pound of butter.

More than half an hour for a loaf of white bread and a 16-ounce jar of peanut butter at $1.88.

More than half an hour for a 1.81-pound family-pack of pork chops.

45 minutes for a gallon of milk.

55 minutes for 1.52 pounds of beef chuck on sale.

A full hour to afford a nearly 5-pound family-pack of chicken drumsticks or thighs.

A full hour to afford a pound of fresh salmon.

A full hour to throw a 1-pound bag of frozen vegetables, a pound of fresh tomatoes, and a bag of carrots into the cart.

Biden is worried about his net worth being as low as $70,000. At $5.85 an hour, it would take nearly 12,000 hours, or nearly six years, to earn that amount. Even six rolls of toilet paper requires a half-hour of work at minimum wages. Shulman is right. No one should live like that in America.

Derrick Z. Jackson’s e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.

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35 Comments so far

tj July 28th, 2007 1:05 pm

Thanks to Derrick Jackson for differentiating between the minuscule minimum wage and a living wage.

One related issue that he left out is the payroll tax (Social Security and Medicare), also called FICA. Because this is a flat tax, it harms low-wage workers the worst.

Also, there is a cap on this tax so that at about $90,000 high-wage earners and those who earn so-called “non-earned income” (the rich who get their earnings from low-taxed and non-taxed investments) pay proportionately less, or no payroll taxes at all.

These taxes should should be made progressive and graduated and figured into the living wage discussion.

WJM July 28th, 2007 1:17 pm

Back in the 1980’s when I was teaching privately, I had a student who was a professional accountant. Back then, in about 1986, he told me that he didn’t think that the feds should charge tax on anyone that didn’t make at least $15.00 per hour. He just couldn’t see how anyone could survive on less than that.

Now, over 20 years later, the minimum wage is a THIRD OF THAT, AFTER the first raise. Meanwhile, the ultra rich have gained percentages in the 30% and above range, in some cases PER YEAR. How the hell do these republicans call themselves Americans when their whole goal is to kill off an entire segemnt of our society?

If we can have a miniumum wage, why not a maximum wage? When I was a kid, the top tax rate was 90%! And now, for those same people the top tax rate is 15%. Back in 1956, business paid 33% of all taxes paid in this country. Now it’s 7%. Who the hell do you think makes up that shortfall? It certainly isn’t those rich types who get a break on FICA at $90,000. In 1956, we had about 13 billionaires in this country. Now we have over a thousand. Those 90% tax rates were set up specifically set up to eliminate the dangers of that much money in too few hands. Unfortunately, no one else’s net worth has gone up at all, and in fact, since 1973, we as a people have LOST money. Funny how that coincides with the self destruction of the right wing president, NIXON.

This is all class war, and until we as a people wake up to the fact that the ultra rich HAVE indeed declared war on us, we will be the losers.

frank1569 July 28th, 2007 3:00 pm

Biden should be more careful - it won’t belong until we learn his real net worth is as obscene as the rest of the white multi-millionaire so-called “representatives” ruining this country. Shoulda kept his mouth shut.

It’s way past time to dump the term “minimum wage.” Minimum what? The minimum an employer can get away with paying? The new term is “survival wage,” which is easy to define: how much does it cost to survive like an actual human being in NYC, CHI, LA, etc. Add up the basics and divide by 160. No where in this God-blessed land of a thousand billionaires can a person survive for less than $11.00. Period. With not a dollar left for recreation or leisure.

Survival wage. If America can’t guarantee that, what good are we?

zazmo July 28th, 2007 3:07 pm

From what I’ve heard, your typical Living Wage advocate will tell you that roughly $10 per hour without medical benefits, or $9 per hour with medical benefits, is a living wage; and anything less than that is a wage an employer should be too ashamed to ever pay his or her employee.

Io Q. Lellity July 28th, 2007 3:21 pm

Living wage (at least 13$ for California, I think) needs to come along with universal nonprofit healthcare and college education, as well. Since, after all, if someone has fifty thousand in student loans, and/or horrendous medical bills, then even 11 or so an hour is barely going to be enough for them to get by.

Philly Tom July 28th, 2007 4:35 pm

The 1968 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, would be $9.58 today. The current minimum is 39% below that.

ezeflyer July 28th, 2007 5:10 pm

Let them eat cheap high fructose corn syrup. When their resulting obesity causes diabetes, they get treated at taxpayer, not at corporate expense.

TreeFitz July 28th, 2007 6:28 pm

Was it a mirage of my youth that we used to, at least occasionally, elect people who were called to public service because they were genuinely called to serve?

Any business that does not provide living wages to all its employees is an unfair drain on the resources of the human community. No business owner should be allowed to take one cent of profit if that profit must be built on underpaying humans.

Every human being born owns a share on the resources of the planet. Is that communism? Or human decency?

Kernel July 28th, 2007 7:51 pm

The GOD party would say it is written–It is more blessed to give than to receive. That is why they want to keep the minimum wage low. You see, their intentions are honorable.

EconProf July 28th, 2007 10:43 pm

The minimum wage in 1978 was $2.65 and CEO compensation in 1978 was 78 times that of a minimum wage earner. In 2007 CEO pay is 821 times more than a minimum wage earner. If the minimum wage had increased as much, it would be $27.89
I agree with WJM above: There should be a maximum wage law!

madcowfree July 29th, 2007 12:50 am

“Here’s an idea. Stay in school. Graduate. DO NOT have three children before you are old enough to drink. If you get a minimum wage job, apply yourself and move up. Whine less, apply yourself more.”

I live in NW Florida where wages are very low and everything else keeps going up. I make $7.50 an hour, after taxes I bring home about $275.00 a week. I do NOT have ANY children, I am 42 years old. I DO have an accounting degree also.
Let me do the math for you.
Gas to go to work (That’s not going anywhere else, just work) $100.00 a month
Electricity $260.00 a month (Electricity in this area shot up a couple of years ago).
Phone bill $120.00 a month (That’s basic with free long distance).
About 4 months out of the year during the cold months I pay about $300.00 a month for Propane gas to run my central heat.
I make a payment on a small USED pickup truck, that’s $275.00 a month.
Car insurance $95.00 a month.
Thankfully I got my land and OLD mobile home at a really good price and with owner financing I paid it off at $200.00 a month for 5 years while I drove an old Dodge van that a friend sold me with money my parents gave me, both of whom are dead now. So I have no rent to pay, not that I could pay it anyway.
That comes to $1150.00 a month 4 months out of the year and $850.00 the other 8 months.
My salary is $1100.00 a month.
So, 8 months out of the year I can actually buy food, you know what that is right Slave of Power?
4 months out of the year I can either freeze my ass off and eat or I can be warm and starve. Which would you choose?
Whenever my truck breaks down I have to hope someone at work knows someone who will fix it REALLY cheap. Same goes for anything breaking down around the house that I can’t fix myself.
So before you go judging people as if they were trash, maybe you should try to have a little compassion for those of us that TRY to get by with the little we have and don’t ask anyone for help.

WJM July 29th, 2007 12:31 pm

I’ll tell you MY story. I DID stay in school, I DID graduate, and I have NO children. I’ve worked for several companies in this area (Boulder, CO) that DID pay fairly well. And they all got bought by someone else, usually a GIANT corporataion, GE springs to mind, who bought three of them. Within a year and a half in each case, the company no longer existed, with the loss of about 90% of the jobs the smaller company hired. The owners and CEOs made out like bandits while the rest of us were out on the street.

And do you know what has replaced those companies and jobs? NOTHING.

I don’t know where the hell you’ve been for the last 25 years or so, but your wonderful little missive of “education is the answer” was true when I got out of school in 1980. It doesn’t mean shit now. This country has been hemoraging jobs for a decade, now, and jobs where you don’t have to wear a paper hat are becoming fewer and further between every day. Even the middle management jobs are going away as factories have closed and been shipped off to China at an unprecedented rate. We no longer manufacture anything of consequence in this country anymore. All we do is import things from China.

You are living in the past. And it’s damned insulting to Americans that you want to blame US for the actions of American businesses and the gov’t. American workers are NOT the problem. The attitudes of the companies that profits are the ONLY thing that matters is. It’s actually ILLEGAL for a company to think of anything but it’s stockholder’s profits. So much for accountability, or even doing what is good for America instead of the multi nationals that no longer have any allegiance to this or any other country.

The workers are NOT the problem. Those at the top who think they are so smart because they can screw their workers IS.

Freedom Loving American July 29th, 2007 2:41 pm

Please remember the world-wide poverty wage is $2.00 per day and until the republicans are able to lower the minimum wage to that level or lower they will not rest. Since 1980 the first Bush/Reagan presidency the republican party has been moving at the speed of light trying to turn the United States into a third/fourth world country. They will not rest until the objectives have been completed. The Delay/Gingrinch/Lott lead congress made sure Clinton was not able to change the course which has been set since 1980.

Who believes this is a better, safer, more progressive nation than it was in 1979 and who has benefited from this republican agenda?

Siouxrose July 29th, 2007 3:08 pm

MADCOWFREE: I live in Florida, too, and recently bought a small place. I was worried about my electric bill, so I bought a little space heater. I use it in winter to heat whatever room I am in, not the whole place. And my AC is set to 82. My electric bill has been between $27-44. I don’t see why yours is so high? Also, with phone, just get the absolute BASIC service (should not run more than $25 with all the bogus taxes) and BUY a phone card. Recharge it. I used to have $110 phone bills, now it’s $25 and I get 400 minutes for $17. on the phone card. That’s about the amount of time I use. I think you can cost cut is my point. Do you grow any produce on your land? Do you buy clothes at thrift shops? Get those oil changes, as they do add life to the car. My Toyota has 160,000 miles on it and is as loyal to me as an old horse. Having raised two daughters on a very variable freelance writer’s income, I have learned MANY cost cutting strategies and kept good credit on an income that often went below $10,000 a year. I am passing on some tried methods!

ron murry July 29th, 2007 4:22 pm

Americans,are the only people on the face of this earth,to be in deep shit up to thier nect in a swamp, look at trees around them and say take a deep breath and hold,Bush is a good leader.

Slave of Power July 29th, 2007 7:31 pm

Madcowfree, I specifically speccified “Urban areas”; rural areas are always poorer. Why not move to the city? In the DC and Southern California areas, which I am most familiar with, it is IMPOSSIBLE to hire an English speaker for anything aproaching minimum wage. If you can’t make it on 40 hours a week, work 60. Change fields. Heck, even delivering pizza can make you $12 an hour (tax free, too).

But, the old saying is true. Winners make progress. Losers whine about how unfair it all is.

Nietzsche July 29th, 2007 8:12 pm

“…you make a mockery of justice, and corrupt all that is good and right…you make slaves of the poor, buying them for their debt of a piece of silver or a pair of shoes, or selling them your moldy wheat…”—–Amos

Nietzsche July 29th, 2007 8:18 pm

On a more personal note, You bums have no decency. I watched 60 minutes an hour ago. You promised to serve OUR best interest, not corporations who are in a position to make YOU rich.

peaceman July 29th, 2007 9:01 pm

Derrick Z. Jackson has written another fine article for the Boston Globe. Thank you both!

With the exception of Slave of Power, the Common Dreamers have come across again with compendious answers to the real decline in American wages. I thank you all.

If my memory serves me, Elizabeth Taylor, the actress, complained about paying 900,000 bucks on the 1,000,000 she received for the movie, “Cleopatra”. She was the first star to gross a million dollars for a film. (correct me if I’m wrong) That period was in the early sixties when our money still had value and a new home cost around ten thousand dollars. Even at the higher tax rate, the wealthy still lived comfortable lives.

In 1972, I made $5.42 an hour in a union job and felt like “Diamond Jim Brady” . We have all seen the standard of living deteriorate , starting with Ronald Reagan’s war on the American worker, continuing non-stop for almost twenty seven years. And these phony politicians vote themselves undeserved pay raises. Shame on them!

Do we really want a living wage with full benefits as some of us older folks remember, or do we continue watching the deterioration of American working people?

Michael Parenti summed it up at a lecture he gave about four years ago and what he said then, is truer today. Basically, the rich and the ruling class never gave the working class anything. All gains and social programs in this country which help the people were the result of a long, hard struggle. He said, in essence, ” they want to turn the clock back 100 years to 1900″. The good ol’ days, eh?

TAKE TO THE STREETS, WITHHOLD YOUR LABOR! Tell me if you have a better plan of action. The peaceman listens.

iwarrior July 29th, 2007 9:10 pm

Why won’t my posts show up here?

iwarrior July 29th, 2007 9:11 pm

Oh that one worked. Anyway…

Slave of Power, dude, that name is not flattering. Take another look at the song “Powerslave”. Bruce Dickinson was singing about how the lust for power corrupts and destroys.

Here’s the thing, you can do all the “correct” things, and you never know when the floor will give out on you.

Sure, you can get that GED, but it’s almost meaningless now. A college degree is almost what a HS diploma used to be. I know people that graduated from college. They’re still struggling with crippling debt. And then when the media tells you to try a certain field, you graduate and the jobs get shipped overseas.

Not everyone who is poor is lazy, listless, and irresponsible. The working poor tend to work harder than the working middle-class.

“Change fields. Heck, even delivering pizza can make you $12 an hour (tax free, too).”

Uh, where’s that? Again, you change field, and the jobs end up going bye-bye.

“But, the old saying is true. Winners make progress. Losers whine about how unfair it all is.”

So, damn all of the working poor, eh? God hates them I suppose and loves all the folks in the ‘burbs with “good” jobs. It’s that mindset that unfortunately fuels our public policy. Privatize everything, and let those who can’t hang fall through the cracks. They deserve it. They’re lazy, irresponsible, and they whine.

What am I doing here? I should go listen to Anthony Robbins and Bob Kiyosaki and Suze Orman, and Dr. Phil and that Laura whatsername…

Horatio Alger is a figment of free-market fantasy. Working hard in the U.S. doesn’t necessarily equate with success and happiness. Maybe it should be that way, but it isn’t. I work my ass off, and while I’m not as bad off as many of my working brethren (in fact I’m fortunate in a number of regards), I still can’t afford a home of my own or a car comfortably. And I’m making $15 an hour.

Powerslave, if you’re prospering, then good for you. I don’t know what line of work you’re in, or how you got there, but just because you got where you are doesn’t mean everyone can. Upward mobility is largely an American lie. Most of the people who are “prospering” were prospering from out of the womb. I’ve know very, very few people who were honestly born into poverty and “made it” so to speak. Rags to riches stories are few and far between, Self-made men and women are rare.

I think a $10 an hour living wage (maybe more) along with universal free health care and education would go a long way towards allowing all of the so-called “losers” (I get that a lot myself) out there to climb out of the hole on their own.

It’s funny, I am reminded of an on-air tussle I had with Fred Honsberger, our Limbaugh wannabe here in Pittsburgh (KDKA AM 1020 to be exact. Thank God for Chris Moore though…) a few years back when I was unemployed. He had referred to the millions of those unemployed as “perennial losers”. Well, I took offense to that of course, and called in. I can’t remember what I said, but basically Honsberger cut me off as he is apt to do and then loudly said on-air to…”GO FIND A JOB!!!”. It became a soundbite used to promote his show for the next year or so.

I guess it’s easy to sit back smugly when you have “made it” and admonish those who haven’t. Truth is, those who have “made it” need to be worried about those who haven’t. It’s only going to get worse. Someday the gap will just get too wide, and that’s when we will see American fall.

iwarrior July 29th, 2007 10:21 pm

powerslave…

iwarrior July 29th, 2007 10:21 pm

SOP, you’re not being “censored”. This board’s wonky. I’ve posted things that didn’t make it on here either. I always save my posts on notepad and copy and paste them. Try registering for the board also. I know, it’s frustrating. They just have some bugs to work out here.

I know I’m not a “loser”. I’m just saying that others have called me that simply because I don’t have the great job, the house on the hill, the fancy car, the pretty wife, etc. You may not look down on me because of those things, and good on you for not being that way, but others do.

I work pretty damn hard. I am trying to get the hell out of my situation. That’s why it makes me angry when people suggest that it must be ME and not the system.

I don’t have any kids out of wedlock. I don’t drink or do drugs. I have never been in trouble with the law. I finished high school. My biggest crimes are probably that I didn’t finish college mainly because I couldn’t afford it, and perhaps, like many people, I probably buy a lot of things I don’t need.

Hey, I could scrimp and save my money, and perhaps invest. I have thought about it. If nothing else I would love to have a lot of money simply to help out my parents who are in a ton of debt. I’d love to fix up their house and get one of my own. I’d love to be able to strike up conversations with women and not have to worry about explaining why I live with my folks and don’t have a car (thankfully many women understand and don’t hold it against me). I’d love to get out of the goddamn warehouse I work in and actually do something I enjoy. I want to write and sing and maybe even get into politics in some capacity. I want the American dream too. What person despite their politics doesn’t? But I take a look around and don’t see it happening for me or anyone else for that matter.

And damn it, I feel like I’m in a cage and can’t get out. I feel as if I’m standing on the edge of a cliff with a Genghis Khan’s golden horde coming after me, and an ocean below. Do I stay and fight the horde or do I jump into the ocean?

Yeah, I’m whining, but so are the middle-class guys who say they’re paying too much in taxes. So are the black people who say they’re being discriminated against.

You can say that I need to take more risks, that I need more confidence, make all the right decisions, and that I need to manage my time better and get off my ass. I’m trying to do all of those things. But when I see others doing that, I don’t see most of them making it either. In fact, I don’t think I know anyone who isn’t struggling. Most of the people I have known who weren’t struggling, seemed to have some sort of edge. They didn’t come from the same background as I did. Their parents had more money. They went to better schools. They had some sort of connection.

My father who makes 50-60 grand a year is still struggling. This country is full of people who struggle.

I really don’t want to come across as a hater of those who have what I do not. I don’t want to bomb the suburbs. I don’t even want to live there. But can you understand the frustration of the have nots? Especially when they’re being told that they’re not dilligent, smart, or sensible enough?

Btw, I apologize if I’m being combative here. I want to you post here Powerslave. People with your views need to be here and see where people like me are coming from

madcowfree July 30th, 2007 1:33 am

Siouxrose I don’t know anyone who has a $44 electric bill. How small is your house? As for the A/C I only have window units, I never could afford central air. I don’t have much insulation under this old house either, which I plan to change as soon as I can afford it. I probably should change my phone service, but the only real enjoyment I get is talking to my sister long distance a few times a week and this way I don’t have to worry about how long I am on. I don’t know anything about growing produce and really wouldn’t have the time with work and all. I do go out and pick berries when they are in abundance in the spring and summer. Then I freeze them. I don’t buy my clothes at thrift stores, I don’t really buy clothes at all, I make do with what I have most of the time. I will buy anything used except my clothes and my bed. Just the way I was raised I guess. Just the thought makes me gag.
I also have a few dogs to feed, I am an animal lover and I always make sure they eat before I do.

peaceman July 30th, 2007 1:48 am

Slave of Power: The ET example was used because Ms Taylor was the first actor paid a seven figure fee for her work. The 90% tax was set during World War Two for the wealthiest individuals in order to raise taxes. Even at that rate, the super-rich still were able to afford the best things overall. Ike, then JFK, began reducing the tax structure, but not to the detriment of this country like GWB’s tax cuts. Please reread Mr. Jackson’s article again as well as the comments from the other writers. We have real-life experiences backing up our statements.

As far as investing your million dollars in my company, I never said you’d have to pay 90% taxes on the investment. Would’nt the taxes paid on your investment depend on the profit margin? I’m no economist, but investors still made money when the tax level was at its highest level.

Liberals want the rich to pay their fair share of taxes. Nothing wrong there.

Little by little, countries are turning away from the dollar and investing in other currencies. Greed is destroying this country from within, Slave of Power. I suggest you read the book, “GLOBAL REACH”, by Richard Barnett and Ronald Muller, published in 1974. What they said over thirty years ago has manifested today. Corporations call the shots, and “national sovereignties” are obstacles to be eliminated. Enough said.

iwarrior: nice to hear from you again.

madcowfree July 30th, 2007 1:53 am

“Madcowfree, I specifically speccified “Urban areas”; rural areas are always poorer. Why not move to the city? In the DC and Southern California areas, which I am most familiar with, it is IMPOSSIBLE to hire an English speaker for anything aproaching minimum wage. If you can’t make it on 40 hours a week, work 60. Change fields. Heck, even delivering pizza can make you $12 an hour (tax free, too).

But, the old saying is true. Winners make progress. Losers whine about how unfair it all is.”

I could never be happy living in a “city”. From my understanding, it costs more to live in urban areas anyway. If I sold my land I could never afford to buy anything even comparable in the city. That would leave me paying rent or a mortgage payment again wouldn’t it? Besides, I like it here, I have lifelong friends here and also 2 sisters and a brother living here in the county too. Would you want to move away from your home to make a few more bucks an hour?
I did deliver pizzas once and I was paid minimum wage plus tips. Let me tell you, the tips were about non existent.
When you are bringing pizzas to people who make the same money you make they can’t afford to tip you.
I used to be able to work 60 hours a week, but when you start getting older you just can’t do it anymore. You learn to get by on less because you don’t want to end up sick or crippled because you have no health insurance. I have heel spurs in both of my feet from always working standing up all my life. The spurs themselves don’t hurt but I also had tendonitus in both feet a couple years back and that was the worst pain you could ever imagine. The only time I wasn’t in pain was when I was lying down sleeping. Still, I managed to land a job in a new distribution center here that had health insurance and payed $9.05 an hour to start. After 30 days of constant pain working 10 or 11 hours a night I was finally able to use the insurance and go to a foot doctor. It took him 4 months to finally get rid of my tendonitus and stop the pain.
After 6 months I got fired from that job because a new department manager came in and he didn’t like me. So much for $9.05 an hour.
I don’t want to be rich, I already feel “rich” with the friends I have and my family. I just want a little more money to enjoy life and to be able to go to a doctor when I am in pain. In the richest country in the world, that shouldn’t be too much to ask, should it?

iwarrior July 30th, 2007 3:09 am

Hey peaceman thanks. I’ve been around. I just haven’t been posting much.

lpenek July 30th, 2007 3:27 am

The have’s will never understand the desperate money plight of haven’ts. Nine years ago, when I worked $15/hr as handyman and had to go to an urgent care clinic that I knew would cost me $140, how could I possibly explain to the rude and uncaring and ultimately completely unhelpful doctor that I got that it would take me close to 10 hours of hard labor to pay for the 10 minutes of anti-care that I got? You can’t, because the moment a person arrives in the higher income bracket a curious amnesia overtakes them: they completely forget the circumstance, what it was like, and what it requires when $5 is actually something to be counted. That’s life.

Rent the movie “Pursuit of Happiness.” It says it better than I can.

Ps.
And that was $15/hr. God help people making $7 or $8. Instead of compulsory military service, all Americans should be forced to work 2 years at Walmart to develop a sense of compassion.

Paul from Texas July 30th, 2007 9:02 am

Is anyone on the ‘Pro’ side of this argument aware of the fact that raising the minimum wage will raise food prices? Which will affect the poor and the working class more than the rich?

Do you think Burger King or Wendy’s will look at the raised minimum wages and say: “By golly, we’re just gonna have to get by on less and pay our employees more! It’s for the good of the country, you know!”

No, they’ll raise prices across the board the day after it goes into effect.
Add that economic improvement to your $3 a gallon gasoline.

Siouxrose July 30th, 2007 5:35 pm

PAUL FROM TEXAS: IS Burger King food?
MADCOW: I have central heat and AC, it’s about the SETTING. How cold/hot do you need it? MY place has 1100 square feet… that IS my bill! Really! I also cut my own lawn, cut my own hair, recycle things, use cloth rather than plastic supermarket (so I take my own) bag, etc. THINK conservation!

wcdevins July 30th, 2007 8:09 pm

I’ve seen this problem from a number of sides as a lifetime federal wage & hour labor law enforcement officer. I’ve seen employers in poverty-torn, double-digit unemployment Newark NJ wards who couldn’t get enough bodies to do unskilled labor jobs for even a buck or two above the MW. I’ve seen factory workers who owed more to their babysitters than they made at their full-time jobs. There are anecdotes to back up all the points of view above, both positive and negative. But the view from the inside is that Reaganomics and its successors have dismantled 100 years of hard-fought gains for labor by giving corporations the rights of people and treating people (labor) as a commodity.

The big picture is the rich want more for less; their compassion for the people who enable them to be rich and live in safety is non-existant; they have dismissed their social contract; their only concern is holding on to money and power. Ironically, their world view may soon spark the “uprising” which they both fear and predict. Their oppression of the working class is bound to backfire before long. The result will depend on whose side the military and the police come down on - the overlords who pay them (insufficiently) or the working populace thay are a part of.

iwarrior July 30th, 2007 11:22 pm

“Rent the movie “Pursuit of Happiness.” It says it better than I can.”

I have seen that movie. As wonderful as it is, I think people on the pro-capitalism side use it as an example of how “hard work pays off.” It’s a modern Horatio Alger tale. I know it’s based on a true story, and God bless that man for finding success after taking such a monumental risk and facing such hardships. But unfortunately, his story was highly atypical. In fact, he was an atypical human being.

“Ps.
And that was $15/hr. God help people making $7 or $8.”

I’m making $15/hr., and I totally hear you. It’s the most I’ve ever made in my life. I was making between $7-8 about 10 years ago, and people wondered back then why I didn’t uh “strike out on my own”.

Like I said in another topic, I attended a homebuyer’s workshop last summer. Half the people there were on welfare. I later found out that a decent home in a decent area would cost me $730 a month. If I can’t afford that, how can the people on welfare do it?

People on the right act as if poverty can be solved by merely lighting fires under the asses of the masses. As if all people need to do is work and work hard. They use it as an excuse to dismantle welfare and other safety nets, thinking (more like acting, because I think they know they’re wrong and want a lot of people to go splat) that if people are worried about whether or not they’ll eat and/or sleep on the street, they’ll just GO FIND A JOB!!!!! Problem solved.

But what if those jobs don’t pay enough?

Then get another one, and a 3rd if ya need to.

And go to school.

But what if you can’t afford it?

Take out a loan. It’s good to be in debt. Builds character and a credit history.

But what if they ship your jobs overseas.

Go back to school again. Learn a new field.

And get three jobs to pay off that college debt.

And be sure to buy a car. Can’t be ridin’ the “loser cruiser”. Nuh-uh. You must try to be dateable after all.

Get that house too. Owning *coughthebankownsit* one’s own home shows uh…character. That’s it. Makes you marriageable also.

Gotta love the American Dream.

scheiber6923 July 30th, 2007 11:41 pm

Yeah, we lived the good life for a while brought in 75K between hubby and I. A few years back my husbands customer service job was rumored to be facing shipping to India, so he took a lay-off package and his six months of wages and got an education in the booming Real Estate business, meanwhile I became pregnant and we had a child with autism, so I went down to part time retail work for barely over minimum wage, so I could stay home with her. Well there went the Real Estate market, who knew ? And my retail job (largest mid-west retailer) won’t schedule me 20 hours a week, so I can’t get health insurance. We briefly had MNcare until I found out a year ago I could have gotten the really crappy expensive insurance, so now we can’t get MNCare for another year and a half. So my 5 shot a day insulin dependant diabetic husband and autistic/epileptic daughter and me only one year recovered from open-heart surgery don’t have insurance can barely make ends meet. He still does real estate, delivers pizzas at night while I work the 4 am shift retail, and go to school to try and pull us out of this mess. Will it work ? Who knows, who expected autism, real estate crash, open heart surgery, retailers cutting employees hours so they can’t get insurance, while paying their CEO 40 mil. Yeah, this is all my fault. Why is it we are brain washed to see it as a personal failure when life doesn’t work out, shit happens, and happens, and happens. Am I whining, you betcha, the system sucks. IT”S NOT ME !!!

scheiber6923 July 30th, 2007 11:46 pm

Iwarrior, I would add- while your out working those four jobs your kids are where- learning what ? So much for family values,, have we noticed the problems with juvenile deliquency has risen with the decline of the dollar, there’s a direct correlation- Mom and Dad can’t afford to spend time with their kids.

lpenek July 31st, 2007 4:29 am

iwarrior - regarding “Pursuit of Happiness,” yes, that’s the part I was, ahem, skipping. I even have a terrible feeling that the protagonist, if questioned, would be right there with Reaganomics and the “By gum, I did it…” attitude. He’s a stock broker, and a millionaire now, so, you don’t have to be Nostradmus to predict his philosophy. What I DID like about that movie was how it expressed the sheer desperation of pennilessness, and the complete lack of comprehension of those even in close association with the main character. That kind of relation I think is common, and important to understand. The fact is that many people try unsuccessfully to hide their financial status. A frayed collar, an old car, the hesitation to buy an expensive menu item; others will detect a person’s status, and judge — often harshly. How sad, really, we live in a sick society. I’ve known yuppies who delight in exposing every last deprecating detail of my life; and they’re upset if anything that challenges them turns up. It’s like Gore Vidal said: “It’s not enough to win, others must lose.”

A few tenets remain axiomatic:

- Everyone with a job is an expert at how to get one.
- Everyone who’s successful thinks it just takes willpower.
- Some (secretly, but deep down) think failure is always a personal flaw.

tj July 28th, 2007 1:05 pm

Thanks to Derrick Jackson for differentiating between the minuscule minimum wage and a living wage.

One related issue that he left out is the payroll tax (Social Security and Medicare), also called FICA. Because this is a flat tax, it harms low-wage workers the worst.

Also, there is a cap on this tax so that at about $90,000 high-wage earners and those who earn so-called “non-earned income” (the rich who get their earnings from low-taxed and non-taxed investments) pay proportionately less, or no payroll taxes at all.

These taxes should should be made progressive and graduated and figured into the living wage discussion.
WJM July 28th, 2007 1:17 pm

Back in the 1980’s when I was teaching privately, I had a student who was a professional accountant. Back then, in about 1986, he told me that he didn’t think that the feds should charge tax on anyone that didn’t make at least $15.00 per hour. He just couldn’t see how anyone could survive on less than that.

Now, over 20 years later, the minimum wage is a THIRD OF THAT, AFTER the first raise. Meanwhile, the ultra rich have gained percentages in the 30% and above range, in some cases PER YEAR. How the hell do these republicans call themselves Americans when their whole goal is to kill off an entire segemnt of our society?

If we can have a miniumum wage, why not a maximum wage? When I was a kid, the top tax rate was 90%! And now, for those same people the top tax rate is 15%. Back in 1956, business paid 33% of all taxes paid in this country. Now it’s 7%. Who the hell do you think makes up that shortfall? It certainly isn’t those rich types who get a break on FICA at $90,000. In 1956, we had about 13 billionaires in this country. Now we have over a thousand. Those 90% tax rates were set up specifically set up to eliminate the dangers of that much money in too few hands. Unfortunately, no one else’s net worth has gone up at all, and in fact, since 1973, we as a people have LOST money. Funny how that coincides with the self destruction of the right wing president, NIXON.

This is all class war, and until we as a people wake up to the fact that the ultra rich HAVE indeed declared war on us, we will be the losers.
frank1569 July 28th, 2007 3:00 pm

Biden should be more careful - it won’t belong until we learn his real net worth is as obscene as the rest of the white multi-millionaire so-called “representatives” ruining this country. Shoulda kept his mouth shut.

It’s way past time to dump the term “minimum wage.” Minimum what? The minimum an employer can get away with paying? The new term is “survival wage,” which is easy to define: how much does it cost to survive like an actual human being in NYC, CHI, LA, etc. Add up the basics and divide by 160. No where in this God-blessed land of a thousand billionaires can a person survive for less than $11.00. Period. With not a dollar left for recreation or leisure.

Survival wage. If America can’t guarantee that, what good are we?
zazmo July 28th, 2007 3:07 pm

From what I’ve heard, your typical Living Wage advocate will tell you that roughly $10 per hour without medical benefits, or $9 per hour with medical benefits, is a living wage; and anything less than that is a wage an employer should be too ashamed to ever pay his or her employee.
Io Q. Lellity July 28th, 2007 3:21 pm

Living wage (at least 13$ for California, I think) needs to come along with universal nonprofit healthcare and college education, as well. Since, after all, if someone has fifty thousand in student loans, and/or horrendous medical bills, then even 11 or so an hour is barely going to be enough for them to get by.
Philly Tom July 28th, 2007 4:35 pm

The 1968 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, would be $9.58 today. The current minimum is 39% below that.
ezeflyer July 28th, 2007 5:10 pm

Let them eat cheap high fructose corn syrup. When their resulting obesity causes diabetes, they get treated at taxpayer, not at corporate expense.
TreeFitz July 28th, 2007 6:28 pm

Was it a mirage of my youth that we used to, at least occasionally, elect people who were called to public service because they were genuinely called to serve?

Any business that does not provide living wages to all its employees is an unfair drain on the resources of the human community. No business owner should be allowed to take one cent of profit if that profit must be built on underpaying humans.

Every human being born owns a share on the resources of the planet. Is that communism? Or human decency?
Kernel July 28th, 2007 7:51 pm

The GOD party would say it is written–It is more blessed to give than to receive. That is why they want to keep the minimum wage low. You see, their intentions are honorable.
EconProf July 28th, 2007 10:43 pm

The minimum wage in 1978 was $2.65 and CEO compensation in 1978 was 78 times that of a minimum wage earner. In 2007 CEO pay is 821 times more than a minimum wage earner. If the minimum wage had increased as much, it would be $27.89
I agree with WJM above: There should be a maximum wage law!
madcowfree July 29th, 2007 12:50 am

“Here’s an idea. Stay in school. Graduate. DO NOT have three children before you are old enough to drink. If you get a minimum wage job, apply yourself and move up. Whine less, apply yourself more.”

I live in NW Florida where wages are very low and everything else keeps going up. I make $7.50 an hour, after taxes I bring home about $275.00 a week. I do NOT have ANY children, I am 42 years old. I DO have an accounting degree also.
Let me do the math for you.
Gas to go to work (That’s not going anywhere else, just work) $100.00 a month
Electricity $260.00 a month (Electricity in this area shot up a couple of years ago).
Phone bill $120.00 a month (That’s basic with free long distance).
About 4 months out of the year during the cold months I pay about $300.00 a month for Propane gas to run my central heat.
I make a payment on a small USED pickup truck, that’s $275.00 a month.
Car insurance $95.00 a month.
Thankfully I got my land and OLD mobile home at a really good price and with owner financing I paid it off at $200.00 a month for 5 years while I drove an old Dodge van that a friend sold me with money my parents gave me, both of whom are dead now. So I have no rent to pay, not that I could pay it anyway.
That comes to $1150.00 a month 4 months out of the year and $850.00 the other 8 months.
My salary is $1100.00 a month.
So, 8 months out of the year I can actually buy food, you know what that is right Slave of Power?
4 months out of the year I can either freeze my ass off and eat or I can be warm and starve. Which would you choose?
Whenever my truck breaks down I have to hope someone at work knows someone who will fix it REALLY cheap. Same goes for anything breaking down around the house that I can’t fix myself.
So before you go judging people as if they were trash, maybe you should try to have a little compassion for those of us that TRY to get by with the little we have and don’t ask anyone for help.
WJM July 29th, 2007 12:31 pm

“Here’s an idea. Stay in school. Graduate. DO NOT have three children before you are old enough to drink. If you get a minimum wage job, apply yourself and move up. Whine less, apply yourself more.”

I’ll tell you MY story. I DID stay in school, I DID graduate, and I have NO children. I’ve worked for several companies in this area (Boulder, CO) that DID pay fairly well. And they all got bought by someone else, usually a GIANT corporataion, GE springs to mind, who bought three of them. Within a year and a half in each case, the company no longer existed, with the loss of about 90% of the jobs the smaller company hired. The owners and CEOs made out like bandits while the rest of us were out on the street.

And do you know what has replaced those companies and jobs? NOTHING.

I don’t know where the hell you’ve been for the last 25 years or so, but your wonderful little missive of “education is the answer” was true when I got out of school in 1980. It doesn’t mean shit now. This country has been hemoraging jobs for a decade, now, and jobs where you don’t have to wear a paper hat are becoming fewer and further between every day. Even the middle management jobs are going away as factories have closed and been shipped off to China at an unprecedented rate. We no longer manufacture anything of consequence in this country anymore. All we do is import things from China.

You are living in the past. And it’s damned insulting to Americans that you want to blame US for the actions of American businesses and the gov’t. American workers are NOT the problem. The attitudes of the companies that profits are the ONLY thing that matters is. It’s actually ILLEGAL for a company to think of anything but it’s stockholder’s profits. So much for accountability, or even doing what is good for America instead of the multi nationals that no longer have any allegiance to this or any other country.

The workers are NOT the problem. Those at the top who think they are so smart because they can screw their workers IS.
Freedom Loving American July 29th, 2007 2:41 pm

Please remember the world-wide poverty wage is $2.00 per day and until the republicans are able to lower the minimum wage to that level or lower they will not rest. Since 1980 the first Bush/Reagan presidency the republican party has been moving at the speed of light trying to turn the United States into a third/fourth world country. They will not rest until the objectives have been completed. The Delay/Gingrinch/Lott lead congress made sure Clinton was not able to change the course which has been set since 1980.

Who believes this is a better, safer, more progressive nation than it was in 1979 and who has benefited from this republican agenda?
Siouxrose July 29th, 2007 3:08 pm

MADCOWFREE: I live in Florida, too, and recently bought a small place. I was worried about my electric bill, so I bought a little space heater. I use it in winter to heat whatever room I am in, not the whole place. And my AC is set to 82. My electric bill has been between $27-44. I don’t see why yours is so high? Also, with phone, just get the absolute BASIC service (should not run more than $25 with all the bogus taxes) and BUY a phone card. Recharge it. I used to have $110 phone bills, now it’s $25 and I get 400 minutes for $17. on the phone card. That’s about the amount of time I use. I think you can cost cut is my point. Do you grow any produce on your land? Do you buy clothes at thrift shops? Get those oil changes, as they do add life to the car. My Toyota has 160,000 miles on it and is as loyal to me as an old horse. Having raised two daughters on a very variable freelance writer’s income, I have learned MANY cost cutting strategies and kept good credit on an income that often went below $10,000 a year. I am passing on some tried methods!
ron murry July 29th, 2007 4:22 pm

Americans,are the only people on the face of this earth,to be in deep shit up to thier nect in a swamp, look at trees around them and say take a deep breath and hold,Bush is a good leader.
Slave of Power July 29th, 2007 7:31 pm

Madcowfree, I specifically speccified “Urban areas”; rural areas are always poorer. Why not move to the city? In the DC and Southern California areas, which I am most familiar with, it is IMPOSSIBLE to hire an English speaker for anything aproaching minimum wage. If you can’t make it on 40 hours a week, work 60. Change fields. Heck, even delivering pizza can make you $12 an hour (tax free, too).

But, the old saying is true. Winners make progress. Losers whine about how unfair it all is.
Nietzsche July 29th, 2007 8:12 pm

“…you make a mockery of justice, and corrupt all that is good and right…you make slaves of the poor, buying them for their debt of a piece of silver or a pair of shoes, or selling them your moldy wheat…”—–Amos
Nietzsche July 29th, 2007 8:18 pm

On a more personal note, You bums have no decency. I watched 60 minutes an hour ago. You promised to serve OUR best interest, not corporations who are in a position to make YOU rich.
peaceman July 29th, 2007 9:01 pm

Derrick Z. Jackson has written another fine article for the Boston Globe. Thank you both!

With the exception of Slave of Power, the Common Dreamers have come across again with compendious answers to the real decline in American wages. I thank you all.

If my memory serves me, Elizabeth Taylor, the actress, complained about paying 900,000 bucks on the 1,000,000 she received for the movie, “Cleopatra”. She was the first star to gross a million dollars for a film. (correct me if I’m wrong) That period was in the early sixties when our money still had value and a new home cost around ten thousand dollars. Even at the higher tax rate, the wealthy still lived comfortable lives.

In 1972, I made $5.42 an hour in a union job and felt like “Diamond Jim Brady” . We have all seen the standard of living deteriorate , starting with Ronald Reagan’s war on the American worker, continuing non-stop for almost twenty seven years. And these phony politicians vote themselves undeserved pay raises. Shame on them!

Do we really want a living wage with full benefits as some of us older folks remember, or do we continue watching the deterioration of American working people?

Michael Parenti summed it up at a lecture he gave about four years ago and what he said then, is truer today. Basically, the rich and the ruling class never gave the working class anything. All gains and social programs in this country which help the people were the result of a long, hard struggle. He said, in essence, ” they want to turn the clock back 100 years to 1900″. The good ol’ days, eh?

TAKE TO THE STREETS, WITHHOLD YOUR LABOR! Tell me if you have a better plan of action. The peaceman listens.
iwarrior July 29th, 2007 9:10 pm

Why won’t my posts show up here?
iwarrior July 29th, 2007 9:11 pm

Oh that one worked. Anyway…

“Here’s an idea. Stay in school. Graduate. DO NOT have three children before you are old enough to drink. If you get a minimum wage job, apply yourself and move up. Whine less, apply yourself more.”

Slave of Power, dude, that name is not flattering. Take another look at the song “Powerslave”. Bruce Dickinson was singing about how the lust for power corrupts and destroys.

Here’s the thing, you can do all the “correct” things, and you never know when the floor will give out on you.

Sure, you can get that GED, but it’s almost meaningless now. A college degree is almost what a HS diploma used to be. I know people that graduated from college. They’re still struggling with crippling debt. And then when the media tells you to try a certain field, you graduate and the jobs get shipped overseas.

Not everyone who is poor is lazy, listless, and irresponsible. The working poor tend to work harder than the working middle-class.

“Change fields. Heck, even delivering pizza can make you $12 an hour (tax free, too).”

Uh, where’s that? Again, you change field, and the jobs end up going bye-bye.

“But, the old saying is true. Winners make progress. Losers whine about how unfair it all is.”

So, damn all of the working poor, eh? God hates them I suppose and loves all the folks in the ‘burbs with “good” jobs. It’s that mindset that unfortunately fuels our public policy. Privatize everything, and let those who can’t hang fall through the cracks. They deserve it. They’re lazy, irresponsible, and they whine.

What am I doing here? I should go listen to Anthony Robbins and Bob Kiyosaki and Suze Orman, and Dr. Phil and that Laura whatsername…

Horatio Alger is a figment of free-market fantasy. Working hard in the U.S. doesn’t necessarily equate with success and happiness. Maybe it should be that way, but it isn’t. I work my ass off, and while I’m not as bad off as many of my working brethren (in fact I’m fortunate in a number of regards), I still can’t afford a home of my own or a car comfortably. And I’m making $15 an hour.

Powerslave, if you’re prospering, then good for you. I don’t know what line of work you’re in, or how you got there, but just because you got where you are doesn’t mean everyone can. Upward mobility is largely an American lie. Most of the people who are “prospering” were prospering from out of the womb. I’ve know very, very few people who were honestly born into poverty and “made it” so to speak. Rags to riches stories are few and far between, Self-made men and women are rare.

I think a $10 an hour living wage (maybe more) along with universal free health care and education would go a long way towards allowing all of the so-called “losers” (I get that a lot myself) out there to climb out of the hole on their own.

It’s funny, I am reminded of an on-air tussle I had with Fred Honsberger, our Limbaugh wannabe here in Pittsburgh (KDKA AM 1020 to be exact. Thank God for Chris Moore though…) a few years back when I was unemployed. He had referred to the millions of those unemployed as “perennial losers”. Well, I took offense to that of course, and called in. I can’t remember what I said, but basically Honsberger cut me off as he is apt to do and then loudly said on-air to…”GO FIND A JOB!!!”. It became a soundbite used to promote his show for the next year or so.

I guess it’s easy to sit back smugly when you have “made it” and admonish those who haven’t. Truth is, those who have “made it” need to be worried about those who haven’t. It’s only going to get worse. Someday the gap will just get too wide, and that’s when we will see American fall.
iwarrior July 29th, 2007 10:21 pm

powerslave…
iwarrior July 29th, 2007 10:21 pm

SOP, you’re not being “censored”. This board’s wonky. I’ve posted things that didn’t make it on here either. I always save my posts on notepad and copy and paste them. Try registering for the board also. I know, it’s frustrating. They just have some bugs to work out here.

I know I’m not a “loser”. I’m just saying that others have called me that simply because I don’t have the great job, the house on the hill, the fancy car, the pretty wife, etc. You may not look down on me because of those things, and good on you for not being that way, but others do.

I work pretty damn hard. I am trying to get the hell out of my situation. That’s why it makes me angry when people suggest that it must be ME and not the system.

I don’t have any kids out of wedlock. I don’t drink or do drugs. I have never been in trouble with the law. I finished high school. My biggest crimes are probably that I didn’t finish college mainly because I couldn’t afford it, and perhaps, like many people, I probably buy a lot of things I don’t need.

Hey, I could scrimp and save my money, and perhaps invest. I have thought about it. If nothing else I would love to have a lot of money simply to help out my parents who are in a ton of debt. I’d love to fix up their house and get one of my own. I’d love to be able to strike up conversations with women and not have to worry about explaining why I live with my folks and don’t have a car (thankfully many women understand and don’t hold it against me). I’d love to get out of the goddamn warehouse I work in and actually do something I enjoy. I want to write and sing and maybe even get into politics in some capacity. I want the American dream too. What person despite their politics doesn’t? But I take a look around and don’t see it happening for me or anyone else for that matter.

And damn it, I feel like I’m in a cage and can’t get out. I feel as if I’m standing on the edge of a cliff with a Genghis Khan’s golden horde coming after me, and an ocean below. Do I stay and fight the horde or do I jump into the ocean?

Yeah, I’m whining, but so are the middle-class guys who say they’re paying too much in taxes. So are the black people who say they’re being discriminated against.

You can say that I need to take more risks, that I need more confidence, make all the right decisions, and that I need to manage my time better and get off my ass. I’m trying to do all of those things. But when I see others doing that, I don’t see most of them making it either. In fact, I don’t think I know anyone who isn’t struggling. Most of the people I have known who weren’t struggling, seemed to have some sort of edge. They didn’t come from the same background as I did. Their parents had more money. They went to better schools. They had some sort of connection.

My father who makes 50-60 grand a year is still struggling. This country is full of people who struggle.

I really don’t want to come across as a hater of those who have what I do not. I don’t want to bomb the suburbs. I don’t even want to live there. But can you understand the frustration of the have nots? Especially when they’re being told that they’re not dilligent, smart, or sensible enough?

Btw, I apologize if I’m being combative here. I want to you post here Powerslave. People with your views need to be here and see where people like me are coming from
madcowfree July 30th, 2007 1:33 am

Siouxrose I don’t know anyone who has a $44 electric bill. How small is your house? As for the A/C I only have window units, I never could afford central air. I don’t have much insulation under this old house either, which I plan to change as soon as I can afford it. I probably should change my phone service, but the only real enjoyment I get is talking to my sister long distance a few times a week and this way I don’t have to worry about how long I am on. I don’t know anything about growing produce and really wouldn’t have the time with work and all. I do go out and pick berries when they are in abundance in the spring and summer. Then I freeze them. I don’t buy my clothes at thrift stores, I don’t really buy clothes at all, I make do with what I have most of the time. I will buy anything used except my clothes and my bed. Just the way I was raised I guess. Just the thought makes me gag.
I also have a few dogs to feed, I am an animal lover and I always make sure they eat before I do.
peaceman July 30th, 2007 1:48 am

Slave of Power: The ET example was used because Ms Taylor was the first actor paid a seven figure fee for her work. The 90% tax was set during World War Two for the wealthiest individuals in order to raise taxes. Even at that rate, the super-rich still were able to afford the best things overall. Ike, then JFK, began reducing the tax structure, but not to the detriment of this country like GWB’s tax cuts. Please reread Mr. Jackson’s article again as well as the comments from the other writers. We have real-life experiences backing up our statements.

As far as investing your million dollars in my company, I never said you’d have to pay 90% taxes on the investment. Would’nt the taxes paid on your investment depend on the profit margin? I’m no economist, but investors still made money when the tax level was at its highest level.

Liberals want the rich to pay their fair share of taxes. Nothing wrong there.

Little by little, countries are turning away from the dollar and investing in other currencies. Greed is destroying this country from within, Slave of Power. I suggest you read the book, “GLOBAL REACH”, by Richard Barnett and Ronald Muller, published in 1974. What they said over thirty years ago has manifested today. Corporations call the shots, and “national sovereignties” are obstacles to be eliminated. Enough said.

iwarrior: nice to hear from you again.
madcowfree July 30th, 2007 1:53 am

“Madcowfree, I specifically speccified “Urban areas”; rural areas are always poorer. Why not move to the city? In the DC and Southern California areas, which I am most familiar with, it is IMPOSSIBLE to hire an English speaker for anything aproaching minimum wage. If you can’t make it on 40 hours a week, work 60. Change fields. Heck, even delivering pizza can make you $12 an hour (tax free, too).

But, the old saying is true. Winners make progress. Losers whine about how unfair it all is.”

I could never be happy living in a “city”. From my understanding, it costs more to live in urban areas anyway. If I sold my land I could never afford to buy anything even comparable in the city. That would leave me paying rent or a mortgage payment again wouldn’t it? Besides, I like it here, I have lifelong friends here and also 2 sisters and a brother living here in the county too. Would you want to move away from your home to make a few more bucks an hour?
I did deliver pizzas once and I was paid minimum wage plus tips. Let me tell you, the tips were about non existent.
When you are bringing pizzas to people who make the same money you make they can’t afford to tip you.
I used to be able to work 60 hours a week, but when you start getting older you just can’t do it anymore. You learn to get by on less because you don’t want to end up sick or crippled because you have no health insurance. I have heel spurs in both of my feet from always working standing up all my life. The spurs themselves don’t hurt but I also had tendonitus in both feet a couple years back and that was the worst pain you could ever imagine. The only time I wasn’t in pain was when I was lying down sleeping. Still, I managed to land a job in a new distribution center here that had health insurance and payed $9.05 an hour to start. After 30 days of constant pain working 10 or 11 hours a night I was finally able to use the insurance and go to a foot doctor. It took him 4 months to finally get rid of my tendonitus and stop the pain.
After 6 months I got fired from that job because a new department manager came in and he didn’t like me. So much for $9.05 an hour.
I don’t want to be rich, I already feel “rich” with the friends I have and my family. I just want a little more money to enjoy life and to be able to go to a doctor when I am in pain. In the richest country in the world, that shouldn’t be too much to ask, should it?
iwarrior July 30th, 2007 3:09 am

Hey peaceman thanks. I’ve been around. I just haven’t been posting much.
lpenek July 30th, 2007 3:27 am

The have’s will never understand the desperate money plight of haven’ts. Nine years ago, when I worked $15/hr as handyman and had to go to an urgent care clinic that I knew would cost me $140, how could I possibly explain to the rude and uncaring and ultimately completely unhelpful doctor that I got that it would take me close to 10 hours of hard labor to pay for the 10 minutes of anti-care that I got? You can’t, because the moment a person arrives in the higher income bracket a curious amnesia overtakes them: they completely forget the circumstance, what it was like, and what it requires when $5 is actually something to be counted. That’s life.

Rent the movie “Pursuit of Happiness.” It says it better than I can.

Ps.
And that was $15/hr. God help people making $7 or $8. Instead of compulsory military service, all Americans should be forced to work 2 years at Walmart to develop a sense of compassion.
Paul from Texas July 30th, 2007 9:02 am

Is anyone on the ‘Pro’ side of this argument aware of the fact that raising the minimum wage will raise food prices? Which will affect the poor and the working class more than the rich?

Do you think Burger King or Wendy’s will look at the raised minimum wages and say: “By golly, we’re just gonna have to get by on less and pay our employees more! It’s for the good of the country, you know!”

No, they’ll raise prices across the board the day after it goes into effect.
Add that economic improvement to your $3 a gallon gasoline.
Siouxrose July 30th, 2007 5:35 pm

PAUL FROM TEXAS: IS Burger King food?
MADCOW: I have central heat and AC, it’s about the SETTING. How cold/hot do you need it? MY place has 1100 square feet… that IS my bill! Really! I also cut my own lawn, cut my own hair, recycle things, use cloth rather than plastic supermarket (so I take my own) bag, etc. THINK conservation!
wcdevins July 30th, 2007 8:09 pm

I’ve seen this problem from a number of sides as a lifetime federal wage & hour labor law enforcement officer. I’ve seen employers in poverty-torn, double-digit unemployment Newark NJ wards who couldn’t get enough bodies to do unskilled labor jobs for even a buck or two above the MW. I’ve seen factory workers who owed more to their babysitters than they made at their full-time jobs. There are anecdotes to back up all the points of view above, both positive and negative. But the view from the inside is that Reaganomics and its successors have dismantled 100 years of hard-fought gains for labor by giving corporations the rights of people and treating people (labor) as a commodity.

The big picture is the rich want more for less; their compassion for the people who enable them to be rich and live in safety is non-existant; they have dismissed their social contract; their only concern is holding on to money and power. Ironically, their world view may soon spark the “uprising” which they both fear and predict. Their oppression of the working class is bound to backfire before long. The result will depend on whose side the military and the police come down on - the overlords who pay them (insufficiently) or the working populace thay are a part of.
iwarrior July 30th, 2007 11:22 pm

“Rent the movie “Pursuit of Happiness.” It says it better than I can.”

I have seen that movie. As wonderful as it is, I think people on the pro-capitalism side use it as an example of how “hard work pays off.” It’s a modern Horatio Alger tale. I know it’s based on a true story, and God bless that man for finding success after taking such a monumental risk and facing such hardships. But unfortunately, his story was highly atypical. In fact, he was an atypical human being.

“Ps.
And that was $15/hr. God help people making $7 or $8.”

I’m making $15/hr., and I totally hear you. It’s the most I’ve ever made in my life. I was making between $7-8 about 10 years ago, and people wondered back then why I didn’t uh “strike out on my own”.

Like I said in another topic, I attended a homebuyer’s workshop last summer. Half the people there were on welfare. I later found out that a decent home in a decent area would cost me $730 a month. If I can’t afford that, how can the people on welfare do it?

People on the right act as if poverty can be solved by merely lighting fires under the asses of the masses. As if all people need to do is work and work hard. They use it as an excuse to dismantle welfare and other safety nets, thinking (more like acting, because I think they know they’re wrong and want a lot of people to go splat) that if people are worried about whether or not they’ll eat and/or sleep on the street, they’ll just GO FIND A JOB!!!!! Problem solved.

But what if those jobs don’t pay enough?

Then get another one, and a 3rd if ya need to.

And go to school.

But what if you can’t afford it?

Take out a loan. It’s good to be in debt. Builds character and a credit history.

But what if they ship your jobs overseas.

Go back to school again. Learn a new field.

And get three jobs to pay off that college debt.

And be sure to buy a car. Can’t be ridin’ the “loser cruiser”. Nuh-uh. You must try to be dateable after all.

Get that house too. Owning *coughthebankownsit* one’s own home shows uh…character. That’s it. Makes you marriageable also.

Gotta love the American Dream.
scheiber6923 July 30th, 2007 11:41 pm

Yeah, we lived the good life for a while brought in 75K between hubby and I. A few years back my husbands customer service job was rumored to be facing shipping to India, so he took a lay-off package and his six months of wages and got an education in the booming Real Estate business, meanwhile I became pregnant and we had a child with autism, so I went down to part time retail work for barely over minimum wage, so I could stay home with her. Well there went the Real Estate market, who knew ? And my retail job (largest mid-west retailer) won’t schedule me 20 hours a week, so I can’t get health insurance. We briefly had MNcare until I found out a year ago I could have gotten the really crappy expensive insurance, so now we can’t get MNCare for another year and a half. So my 5 shot a day insulin dependant diabetic husband and autistic/epileptic daughter and me only one year recovered from open-heart surgery don’t have insurance can barely make ends meet. He still does real estate, delivers pizzas at night while I work the 4 am shift retail, and go to school to try and pull us out of this mess. Will it work ? Who knows, who expected autism, real estate crash, open heart surgery, retailers cutting employees hours so they can’t get insurance, while paying their CEO 40 mil. Yeah, this is all my fault. Why is it we are brain washed to see it as a personal failure when life doesn’t work out, shit happens, and happens, and happens. Am I whining, you betcha, the system sucks. IT”S NOT ME !!!
scheiber6923 July 30th, 2007 11:46 pm

Iwarrior, I would add- while your out working those four jobs your kids are where- learning what ? So much for family values,, have we noticed the problems with juvenile deliquency has risen with the decline of the dollar, there’s a direct correlation- Mom and Dad can’t afford to spend time with their kids.
lpenek July 31st, 2007 4:29 am

iwarrior - regarding “Pursuit of Happiness,” yes, that’s the part I was, ahem, skipping. I even have a terrible feeling that the protagonist, if questioned, would be right there with Reaganomics and the “By gum, I did it…” attitude. He’s a stock broker, and a millionaire now, so, you don’t have to be Nostradmus to predict his philosophy. What I DID like about that movie was how it expressed the sheer desperation of pennilessness, and the complete lack of comprehension of those even in close association with the main character. That kind of relation I think is common, and important to understand. The fact is that many people try unsuccessfully to hide their financial status. A frayed collar, an old car, the hesitation to buy an expensive menu item; others will detect a person’s status, and judge — often harshly. How sad, really, we live in a sick society. I’ve known yuppies who delight in exposing every last deprecating detail of my life; and they’re upset if anything that challenges them turns up. It’s like Gore Vidal said: “It’s not enough to win, others must lose.”

A few tenets remain axiomatic:

- Everyone with a job is an expert at how to get one.
- Everyone who’s successful thinks it just takes willpower.
- Some (secretly, but deep down) think failure is always a personal flaw.

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