Harry
Targ
The experience of increasing poverty, economic marginalization, and
the rise of political reaction against workers, unions, women, people of color,
the right to vote, and basic dignity for the 99 percent has stimulated mass
mobilizations in protest over the last two years. From Arab Spring, to protests
all across the Midwest in defense of worker’s rights, to the Occupy Movement,
anti-racist campaigns in Florida and elsewhere against so-called “Stand Your
Ground” laws, and the Moral Majority mobilizations inspired by fight backs
against the suppression of voter rights, working people are on the move.
Inspired by an implicit vision of what a better society would look
like, people sometimes engage in politics through campaigns involving
particular issues. In Indiana and Georgia groups are demanding that their
governors accept Medicaid Expansion. In addition activists around the country are
making modest but significant demands that the federal government and states
increase the minimum wage. Labor, grassroots groups of various kinds, and
sectors of the faith community have taken up the call. Even President Obama has
urged Congress to pass legislation to raise the minimum wage.
Senator Tom Harkin and Congressman George Miller introduced The
Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013 which has served as an example of what grassroots
groups are demanding. The Act calls for a raise in the federal minimum wage to
$10.10 an hour by 2015. It would require wage adjustments each year based on
changes in the cost of living. Finally, the law would require a raise in the
minimum wage for “tipped workers,” from $2.13 to 70 percent of the minimum wage
(theoretically additional wages would come from customer tips).
The defenders of the bill estimate that it would favorably impact
30 million workers: 88 percent adults (above teenage status), 56 percent of
women workers, almost half of workers of color, and 17 million minimum wage
workers who have children. They claim
that the number of U.S. workers depending on low-wage jobs has increased
significantly. Since the recession 58 percent of new jobs have been low-wage
and six of ten top growth occupations are low-wage. Their median age is almost
35 years of age. Two-thirds of them are employed by large chains which are
experiencing large rates of profit. (Some of these chains are dependent upon
their low wage workers receiving Medicaid and other forms of assistance rather
than adequate wages and benefits from their job).
David Cooper (“Raising the Federal Minimum Wage to $10.10 Would
Lift Wages for Millions and Provide a Modest Economic Boost,” Economic Policy
Institute, Briefing Paper #371 December 19, 2013) presented a broad array of
data on what effects raising the minimum wage to $10.10 by July, 2016 would
have on each state’s workers. For
example, such a law would directly affect over 1 million of Florida’s 7.7
million workers. This would impact 56 per cent of low wage workers above the
age of 30; 46 percent of white workers, 20.1 percent of Blacks, 30.2 percent
Hispanic. Twenty-eight percent were parents (11. 3 percent single
parents).Forty-five percent of beneficiaries of a raised minimum wage would be
workers with some college or bachelors’ degrees.
At the national level, as was suggested above, millions of workers
would get higher wages and GDP would grow by about $22 billion, which would
create 85,000 new jobs. Cooper concluded about the national impacts: “Raising
the federal minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016 would lift the incomes of millions
of working families, boosting their spending power at a time when the U.S. economy
is in dire need of increased consumer spending.”
Where Do
We Go From Here? Raising the Minimum Wage is a Moral Imperative
.…while the
stock market is closing at unprecedented highs, workers who make minimum wage
are not recovering — they’re barely putting food on the table. Millions of
low-wage workers in our country work hard day in and day out and still can’t
afford life’s basic necessities. They are the restaurant servers feeding us,
the people caring for our elderly or sick loved ones, and the workers keeping
our buildings clean. They are our brothers, mothers, friends, congregants, and
community members — and they are suffering silently, choosing between buying
food, getting to work, and paying the rent.
….We
believe in models in which employers treat their workers as human beings rather
than as just another cost of doing business. We believe in putting purchasing
power back into the hands of workers, who will spend those dollars in their
local communities. We believe in an economy that is strong because workers have
enough to live on and create demand for business. Better wages mean a real
recovery: sustainable jobs, thriving families, and flourishing economies.
Legislation
that raises the minimum wage is an important part of creating this vision.
This is
more than a political issue — it is a moral imperative.
