The Reluctance to Raise Minimum Wage Battle
Even the most wealthy, at some point in their lives, probably experienced some sort of low paying job on their way to the top. Take Brad Pitt, the movie star, whose home was in the Midwest up until age 18 or so and a member of a family who was in the trucking business. You know he experienced low wages. I would suspect Donald Trump also did also. Even, President Obama, no doubt did as a young man. All know how piss poor the federal minimum wage of $7.25 is. They probably cannot believe that anyone would work for so little. Yet, many do because private businesses and government all are overly greedy and seek a profit, in the case of businesses. As for government, they are simply not doing anything higher than mandated by law.
The reluctance of states across America to increase the state minimum wage is all rooted in the same dogma. These states include Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama,South Carolina, Indiana, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Idaho, Oklahoma, Kansas, Idaho, New Hampshire, Iowa, Wyoming, Utah and North Dakota. Most of these states have unemployment between 6-8%. Of the 50 states, only 14 of them have some sort of proposed increased to between $7.75- 8.50 an hour. This would be a new state minimum that all must pay workers. This is still a pathetic low amount for 2015 economy. Try living off this amount if you have a family of any size. It is hard if you are just single. The only states that will raise the min. wage to $9-10 an hour are: California, Oregon, Connecticut, Washington, Massachusetts, and Vermont.
But the truth is that a minimum wage of $9 hr. is too low for 2015. So, many cities are passing ordinances setting the min.wage for all businesses in their area. In Tacoma, Washington, there is a bill to increase it to $15 an hour. This has been the highest in the nation for any city. In San Jose, CA., where a two bedroom apartment can run $2000 a month and where the big IT companies are, the min. wage is only $10.15 hr. Try living in that city on that wage. Across the USA, the major urban cities all have proposals to increase the min. wage to between $12-15 hr.
The face off is between government and private business. Obama wants the minimum wage increase to $10 hr. across the USA, yet, the Republicans are blocking it citing that it would destroy up to million jobs in the economy. They and small businesses oppose any raise because of greed and profit. They do not care about those working in those jobs as long as they meet their profit margins or create some job that looks good on paper yet does nothing to grow the economy.
For the over 3 million workers who earn just the minimum wage, just from a humanity perspective, they deserve more for the shit job they are doing that few others want to do. But, what is sadly funny, even when huge corporations pay the lowest level employee more than the minimum wage set by the US government, say $8-9 hr., they seem to think this is a wonderful perk as to why one would want to work hard and forever for the company. The mindset of the the worker earning so little is quite the opposite and will drop the job for any job that pays a dollar or two more per hour.
Low wages create personnel issues in low moral, productivity, and employee turnover. All business should be willing to be less greedy and spread the wealth around. Where is Robin Hood?
