Democrats Introduce Bill to Raise Minimum Wage to $9.80
In the United States, there is really no such thing as a ‘livable wage’. As rampant hyper inflation sets in due to the increase in the nation’s money supply, everything from food to fuel to rent has increased significantly.
Fifty million Americans collect food stamps. 1 in 2 are now considered ‘poor’. Though an increase in the minimum wage has its issues, there is really no way that a person can live off of $7.25 per hour.
Of course big business is likely to fight the increase of the minimum wage by slashing the number of hours given to employees. This act would present a significant danger to America’s already downtrodden and sluggish economy. With production levels the lowest they’ve ever been in what was once the greatest of industrialized nations, cutting hours would prove a big mistake.
Grant J. Kidney
Daily Kos — More than 100 House Democrats introduced a bill Thursday to raise the minimum wage. Rep. George Miller’s proposed legislation would raise the minimum wage to $9.80 over three years, 85 cents per year, then link it to inflation, so that raising it wouldn’t have to be a giant political fight every few years. Tipped workers, who haven’t seen their $2.13 minimum wage increased since 1991, would get 85 cent raises until the tipped minimum was 70 percent of the full minimum wage.
“Anyone who works hard and plays by the rules should not live in poverty. Yet 47 million Americans now qualify as the working poor. Raising the minimum wage helps families make ends meet,” Miller said in a statement accompanying the bill.
If you work at the current minimum wage for 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, with no time off at all, the $15,080 you earn puts you $50 below the poverty threshold for a family of two. That—and the fact that many minimum wage employers keep workers at part-time levels—is why so many working people are forced to rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid and other aid programs. It shouldn’t be controversial to say that if you work, you shouldn’t be poor. But to today’s Republican Party, that counts as a radical statement.
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