Wondering about the Minimum Wage? · Think Out Loud

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Wondering about the Minimum Wage?

Thursday: September 4th 2008

A caller on today's show asked about John McCain's record on the minimum wage. I couldn't come up with the federal figure off the top of my head and we never established what it actually is. Right now, the federal minimum wage is $6.55 an hour, going to $7.25 next summer. The states are all over the place: Oregon's minimum wage is $7.95, Washington's is $8.07.

According to Barack Obama's website, he wants to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2011. It's not mentioned in John McCain's economic briefing paper but this truth-squad from the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly offers a detailed look at his votes on the issue.

The minimum wages begs a fundamental question. Is it a tenet of our society to provide employment at a rate insufficient for a person to be able to meet their basic needs for food, shelter, and clothing ? If a business cannot provide adequate wages for its employees does that business have a right to employ people ? Are such businesses the root of proverty ? Without government standards below which businesses cannot (in theory) pay, what would be the minimum wage ? There was (and may still be) a CEO of a large corporation who received hundreds of millions of dollars as an annual salary (not including bonus) with thousands of minimum wage workders. This same CEO spent millions to prevent the workers from forming a union. Business as usual ? Why is it that the people who claim the power of the free market for determining the price of products and wages run to the government for help to import workers rather than raise the wages of workers with skills in short supply, like nurses. Many of these same people run to the government to put barriers (import fees) in place to prevent cheaper products from being imported, such as sugar. Shouldn't minimum wage jobs be limited to teenagers, college students, people with living wage jobs who seek additional income, and retired people seeking additional income or something to do. As far as I am concerned minimum wage jobs is slavery by more polite name but slavery nonetheless. It traps people into a life of poverty from which few escape. For the record, I do not have a minimum wage job - yet. MeanMachine2 — Sat Sept. 6th 9:50a.m.
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