Tag Archives: Minimum wage

March 8, 2013 · 5:02 AM

Important Stories That You Might’ve Missed

The president signed the Violence Against Women Act today, which proves Washington can get things done if House Republicans drop their intransigent resistance long enough to allow important bills to come to a vote.

Think Progress

9 Popular Progressive Ideas

Here’s 9 other popular progressive ideas that should become the law of the land:

  1. Raising the Minimum Wage: In his State of the Union speech, the president called for the minimum wage to be raised to $9.00 an hour. And just this week, two leading progressives, Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), introduced legislation to raise it to $10.00 per hour. A poll out yesterday found that 71 percent of Americans back raising the minimum wage to $9.00.
  2. Universal Background Checks for Gun Purchases: The Senate Judiciary Committee is working on gun violence prevention legislation as we speak and is expected to advance a universal background check bill to the full Senate as soon as tomorrow. This is a no brainer. Not only would this be the most effective policy to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them, it’s supported by nearly everyone. The most recent poll, out just today, finds that 88 percent support universal background checks — including 85 percent of gun-owning households. Other polls have shown support of over 90 percent.
  3. Additional Revenues to Reduce the Deficit: A whopping 76 percent of Americans agree with the president that we need a balanced approach to reduce our deficit, one that includes both spending cuts and additional tax revenues. Just 19 percent back the Republican viewthat we should reduce the deficit through spending cuts alone.
  4. Job-Creating Infrastructure Investments: A majority of Americans support making investments to repair and replace our deteriorating national infrastructure — investments that could create hundreds of thousands of jobs. In fact, investing in our roads, bridges, airports, and other infrastructure was the most popular job creation policy. Unfortunately, Congressional Republicans have repeatedly voted down such proposals in recent years, citing their unwillingness to finance them using tax hikes on the wealthy and corporate special interests like Big Oil.
  5. Pathway to Earned Citizenship: A pathway to earned citizenship is an integral part of reforming our broken immigration system and bringing the 11 MILLION undocumented immigrants already here out of the shadows. Even 60 percent of Republicans support a pathway to earned citizenship, which receives the support of 70 percent of all Americans.
  6. Expanding the Medicaid Program: Two-thirds of Americans favor the part of ObamaCare that calls for expanding the Medicaid program. in order to insure millions of lower-income Americans. The Supreme Court made the expansion voluntary and, thankfully, even many conservative Republican governors are coming around and now support expanding the program in their states.
  7. Marriage Equality: Support for full marriage equality is now a mainstream, majority view. Astudy out today found that opposition to marriage equality is now concentrated “among a few narrow demographic groups.”
  8. Universal Access to Birth Control: ObamaCare requires health insurers to offer birth control at no additional cost, a policy supported by 70 percent of Americans. This policy is alsosupported by a majority of Catholics despite continuing opposition by Catholic bishops.
  9. Expanded Early Childhood Education: In his State of the Union speech, the president proposed universal pre-kindergarten for every four year-old and a significant expansion of other early childhood education programs. Unsurprisingly, two-thirds of Americans supportmaking these kind of vital investments in our children — investments which come with significant returns.

BOTTOM LINE: Support for progressive ideas and values isn’t limited to Democrats or the left side of the political spectrum. Most progressive policies enjoy broad, bipartisan support and are simply mainstream views held by a majority of Americans. By contrast, conservatives are clinging to an ideology and views that are seen as extreme and out of touch by a majority of Americans.

 

Think Progress Evening Report

Paul Ryan balances the latest GOP budget by embracing Obama policies.

No, Rand Paul, the government is not going to drone Jane Fonda.

In the wake of the Newtown massacre, gun manufacturers are raking in huge profits.

A guide to the conservative movement in one chart.

Rand Paul embraces one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century.

Arkansas adopts most restrictive (unconstitutional) abortion ban in the country.

GOP senator insists that gun trafficking is not a problem.

Speaker Boehner thinks the cancellation of White House tours is the greatest tragedy of the sequester.

Tuition at public colleges and universities hit a record high just as education funding has plummeted.

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February 17, 2013 · 8:38 AM

GOP ‘Savior’ Marco Rubio Falls Back On The Same Old Anti-Woman Policies

The recently passed Violence Against Women Act had no help from 22 Republican male Senators.

Great way to open their arms out to minorities and women to elevate their low approval ratings by the American people. <snark>

Think Progress

In an interview on Thursday with conservative magazine Newsmax, Tea Party standard-bearer and so-called ‘savior’ of the Republican party Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) revealed that he will become a cosponsor of the “Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act.” The bill is a concerted effort to prevent girls in dangerous family situations from going across state lines to receive abortions.

Familiarly known as “the Grandmother Incarceration Act,” CIANA bills have come up in Congress several times in recent years. Nearly every iteration of the legislation would prevent even a victim of rape or incest from getting a ride to an abortion clinic beyond state lines from her grandmother or older sibling, if she is under the age of 18. Instead, the girl would be forced to inform her parents or legal guardian, and be required to have them present.

While the bill has not yet been introduced, previous versions of the text would even apply the requirements to girls who require a medically necessary, potentially lifesaving abortion.

The fact that Rubio will serve as a co-sponsor on the legislation reveals a lot about the supposed new face of the Republican party. The policy, like many of Rubio’s policy choices, is actually an old trick from the Grand Old Party, not some new approach to Republican ideals. And it falls in line with Rubio’s party’s, and the Senator’s own, recent anti-woman efforts:

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: Rubio voted against the Violence Against Women Act because it allocated money to rape victims.

MINIMUM WAGE: He won’t support a minimum wage, despite its huge benefits for women.

BIRTH CONTROL: The senator introduced a bill that would have prevented millions of women from accessing birth control.

PAY EQUITY: He called a bill to promote pay equity between men and women “nothing but an effort to help trial lawyers.”

With his post-State of the Union rebuttal, Rubio signed up to be the face of a Republican party that is working hard to win over women and people of color, the groups that cost Republicans the election last time around. But with Rubio’s history of anti-woman policies, and now his renewed commitment to co-sponsor more of the same, he may just on the vanguard of a new Republican path back to the same Republican problems.

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January 7, 2013 · 9:46 PM

Would A $15 Minimum Wage Work?

Jobs Cityscape - http://mariopiperni.com/

Seems there’s no real concern for “the people”…just “the corporations”.  Ask the SCOTUS Justices who voted to allow Citizens United.

Mario Piperni

Diana McGinness believes so.

“Cut, cut, cut entitlements!”

“Reduce the debt!”  We need to broaden the base (i.e more taxes on the 47%)!

“Reduce the size of government!”

Turn on any cable news network and that’s all you’ll hear.

And the only answers the politicians have are:  raise more taxes and/or cut entitlements (not defense, of course) or both.

We hear the GOP wants to cut food stamps and other programs that help the poor.  That something must be done with SS and Medicare because they’re going broke and Medicaid needs to be cut back, too, because we just don’t have the money.  And the Democrats refuse to let these programs take a hit.

People are tired of paying taxes to help the “lazy 47% who don’t pay taxes, is the complaint.

The economy is too sluggish, it’s not growing!

So we’re in gridlock as usual with no answers that either side is willing to accept.

Is there an alternative?  Maybe.

What if we could add  $169,260,000,000 to the economy?

Add $25,389,000,000 to the treasury each year in the form of taxes (without increasing anyone’s taxes.  Over 10 years, that’s $2.5 trillion add to the Treasury that could be earmarked to reduce the debt/deficit.

Reduce the costs of programs providing food stamps, housing vouchers, and the big one – Medicaid?

Collect $10,494.120,000 more annually in FICA premiums to shore up Social Security and Medicare.  That’s over $1 trillion in 10 years, that would surely strengthen each of these programs for the coming years without making major changes in the program.

How, you ask?

Increase the minimum wage to $15.00.

Using 2010 numbers, the poverty level for 1 person under 65 was $11,344.  That’s someone making $218.15 per week, or $5.45 an hour.  The working poor receive assistance in the form of housing vouchers, food stamps, and Medicaid and pay little, if anything in the form of federal taxes.

Using the federal minimum wage in 2010 of $7.25 and the then number of working people making poverty level or less in wages of 10,500,000 you can extrapolate those numbers as follows:

10,500,000 x $7.25 per hour for 40 hours @ 52 weeks = $158,340,000,000 in wages annually. FICA at 6.2% for these workers would contribute $9,817.080.000 to SS/Medicare. Of course, some of these are part-time jobs, so this is merely an example.  But for every person who can be removed from government assistance, that’s less tax dollars needed to support them.

And if you think a person flipping burgers doesn’t deserve $15 per hour, consider how much of your tax dollars are going to subsidize their wages so they can be paid $7.25 to flip those burgers.  One way or the other, the consumer/tax payer is paying a considerable amount to get that burger flipped.

Now change the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour and extrapolate the numbers:

10,500,000 x 15.00 per hour 40 hours @ 52 weeks = $327,600,000,000 in wages annually.  FICA would be a contribution of an additional $10,494,120,000.  Over 10 years that would be over $1.4 Trillion dollars.

With a 15% tax rate, those wages would contribute $25,389,000,000 annually in revenue to the Treasury and could be targeted to directly reduce the debt.  Over 10 years that would be a $2.5 Trillion deduction, in addition to the reduced expenditures for food stamps, housing vouchers, and Medicaid.

Add an additional $169,260,000,000 increased purchasing power to the economy.

Increasing the minimum wage would also add to the treasuries of states in the form of sales tax, income tax, among other taxes these dollars would generate.

A two-person working household could generate $30 per hour providing them income to save and possibly purchase a home.

The counter-argument will be that increasing the minimum wage will reduce jobs.  There are many studies that disprove that argument. There are several papers (links here) that refute that argument.

The other counter- argument will be that the cost of everything will go up and the jobs will move overseas.

First, these are service industry jobs…now 7 out of 10 in the U.S.  - it’s going to be hard to ship them overseas.  Are you going to order your burger from the McDonald’s in China and have it flown over to the pick up window?  I think not.  Nor is the Wal-Mart worker going to be shipped over there either so you can restock the shelves yourself.

As for the cost…two things to consider.  Are you going to pay $15-30 for a McDonald’s Big-Mac?  I think not.

Prices are determined based on the floor (the lowest price a seller can sell a product for) and the ceiling (the highest amount a consumer is willing to pay), and on competitor pricing.

And while the prices may go up — if the consumer is willing to pay and competitors are not competing — the consumer/taxpayer is already paying.  If the end game allows your taxes to be reduced and you, the consumer, have the freedom to choose where you will make your purchases — based on competitive prices and your willingness to pay and the fact that you have more money to spend then haven’t we all won?

When you look at the trillions of dollars that are currently not being invested in our economy via our workers, but are sitting on the shelf waiting to invest…the only question I have is is – who better to invest in than the workers and our economy?

An interesting idea but my concerns would be the impact a $15 minimum wage would have on American competitiveness in global markets. Diana addresses this point.

Yes, that is an argument for manufacturing jobs – but most of those are gone already – some are coming back because, in part, the Chinese are demanding higher wages.

But the service industry jobs are what I’m referring to – they can’t take those overseas.  And with so many of our jobs now in that category (7 out of 10) and these being the lowest paying jobs out there, it’s a place to begin.

Your thoughts?

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July 5, 2012 · 3:59 PM

GOP Rep. Tells Constituent Who Asks About Raising The Minimum Wage To ‘Get A Job’

Did he even hear the question before denigrating the constituent?

Think Progress

House Democrats earlier this month proposed increasing the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour, which would catch the minimum wage up to the buying power it had in 1968. The proposal hasn’t gone anywhere, though, since Republicans who control the House of Representatives oppose any increase.

Asked by a constituent at a Fourth of July parade yesterday, Florida Rep. Bill Young (R) revealed that he is, predictably, opposed to the Democratic proposal. When a constituent asked him why he opposed boosting worker wages, Young replied simply, “Get a job“:

CONSTITUENT: Hi, I’m (inaudible) how are you? Happy Fourth of July. Jesse Jackson, Jr. is passing a bill around to increase the minimum wage to 10 bucks and hour. Do you support that?

YOUNG: Probably not.

CONSTITUENT: 10 bucks, that would give us a living wage.

YOUNG: How about getting a job?

CONSTITUENT: I do have one.

YOUNG: Well, then why do you want that benefit? Get a job.

Watch it, via FLDemocracy.com:

Young seems to miss the point that the millions of minimum wage workers in this country already have jobs. What they want is a job that will pay them enough to actually live on, and Congress could afford them that “benefit” by making the minimum wage as strong as it was  four decades ago.

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September 6, 2011 · 1:11 AM

5 Things Bachmann Has Said That Will Haunt Her

There’s definitely more than five, but I’ll settle, for now…

Crooks& Liars

1. “Not all cultures are equal. . .”  When she was first running for office in 2005, Bachmann said this line during a candidate debate in efforts to convey she believed Muslims had an inferior culture to the western world.

2. “If we took away the minimum wage – if conceivably it was gone – we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.”  Bachmann 2005

3. “Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful but there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.” Bachmann said on the floor of Congress in 2009.

4. “Gay marriage is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, thirty years. I’m not understating that.” See the video above.

5. “I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.” –Rep. Michele Bachmann, suggesting at a presidential campaign event in Florida that the 2011 East Coast earthquake and hurricane was a message from God (Aug. 2011)

Read full text here…

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April 1, 2011 · 12:49 AM

The War On Child Labor Laws: Maine Republicans Want Longer Hours, Lower Pay For Kids

There is no rational explanation for what the far right is doing to turn back the clock to a time in our history that no one but the fat cat corporations want to revisit.   Cheap labor via lower wages and child labor is a thing of the past and needs to remain a thing of the past.  So, having said that, what’s next, bringing back slavery?

Think Progress

Maine State Rep. David Burns is the latest of many Republican lawmakers concerned that employers aren’t allowed to do enough to exploit child workers:

LD 1346 suggests several significant changes to Maine’s child labor law, most notably a 180-day period during which workers under age 20 would earn $5.25 an hour.

The state’s current minimum wage is $7.50 an hour.

Rep. David Burns, R-Whiting, is sponsoring the bill, which also would eliminate the maximum number of hours a minor over 16 can work during school days.

Burns’ bill is particularly insidious, because it directly encourages employers to hire children or teenagers instead of adult workers. Because workers under 20 could be paid less than adults under this GOP proposal, minimum wage workers throughout Maine would likely receive a pink slip as their twentieth birthday present so that their boss could replace them with someone younger and cheaper.   Read more…

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February 21, 2011 · 12:02 AM

Progressive America vs. The GOP’s Version of Corporate America

Since the unrest in Madison Wisconsin, many progressives have had a chance to really evaluate what’s at stake if the corporate shills, namely the GOP and the Tea Party win the battle in Madison.   

In all honesty I’m concerned that the corporate interests backing Gov. Scott Walker and other GOP and Tea Party Governors across the country may just win this fight based on the enormous amount of power that those guys wield.  After all, they’ve even got some members from the Supreme Court of The United States doing their bidding. 

As we all know by now, the agenda of the modern day republican party and in particular the tea party and billionaires like Koch Industries who support it…is to roll back FDR New Deal… so that basically we have a country that is run by very wealthy people, essentially eradicating labor laws, minimum wage increases and social security.  They want to roll back regulation of banks, SEC, etc.

I often refer back to The Rational Radical i.e.,  Jack Clark who has placed the following on the front page of his website:

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

THE JACK CLARK COROLLARY

Everything the right-wing does is designed to accomplish one of two things, either:

(a) transfer wealth from everyone else to the rich,  or   (b) distract everyone else from the fact that (a) is occurring.

There’s no doubt in my mind that as much as we get pissed off with President Obama, the alternate is exponentially worse. 

In 2012 we must increase our majority in the Senate and win back the independents who left us in 2010.  It is essential that Barack Obama be re-elected to finish the remarkable job (for the most part) that he has done.

More importantly we need a Democratic Majority and Presidency to…

1. Maintain the Constitutionally Proper Role of Government
2.  Establish a Supreme Court Majority
3. Maintain Right To Choose
4. Taxes to Maintain our Infrastructure
5. Minimum Wage
6. Maintain Unions
7. Continue Expanding Health Care
8. Safeguarding Our Food, Water & Air
9. Presidential Vetoes
10. War and Peace

The GOP want to dismantle the above agenda.  As a country, as a democracy, we cannot allow that to happen.

Say what you will about Barack Obama.  Think what you will about him.  Just know that if we don’t stand behind him and his agenda, the alternative is a nightmare.  The alternative will be what we are witnessing in Madison, WI. on a national level.

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