Year of Action Gets Going
Posted by Michelle Moquin on January 30th, 2014
Good morning!
In the words of Obama last night calling for a “Year of Action, ” he isn’t wasting any time.
From Think Progress:
We’re Just Getting Started
Big News on the Minimum Wage
President Obama hasn’t even taken the podium for tonight’s State of the Union address yet, but he’s already made big news when it comes to the minimum wage.
This morning we learned that the president will use his executive authority toraise the minimum wage paid by federal contractors under new contracts to $10.10 per hour. As CAP’s Neera Tanden said today, the move “will put more money in the pockets of hardworking Americans, who will spend it in their communities and help drive our economic growth.”
In addition to demonstrating the president’s commitment to creating an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few, which he recently called “the defining challenge of our time,” it underscores another theme we’re expecting to play a big role in tonight’s speech: action.
The current, Republican-controlled Congress is the least productive in history and has refused to even vote on popular items like universal background checks for gun buyers and immigration reform. Today’s announcement on the minimum wage shows that the president understands that we cannot afford to wait for a Do-Nothing Congress to help solve our country’s problems.
That said, the minimum wage is a great example of an area where a willing Congress can work with the president to immediately improve the lives of millions of Americans and help build a stronger economy with greater opportunities for all Americans. While the president’s executive action will help a lot of low-wage workers and is a major victory, Congressional action is required to raise the minimum wage nationwide.
Here are a few numbers to know about increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour:
73……the percentage of Americans who support it.
53……the percentage of Republicans who support it.
273……the ratio of the average CEO salary to that of the average worker. In 1965, CEOs made only 20 times the salary of the average worker.
$10.46……what the minimum wage would have been in 2012 if it had simply kept up with inflation since 1968.
$18.72……what the minimum wage would have been in 2012 if it had kept pace with gains in worker productivity since 1968.
$28.34……what the minimum wage would have been in 2012 if it had grown at the same rate as the wages of the top 1 percent since 1968.
$15,080……the annual earnings of a full-time minimum-wage worker at today’s $7.25 per hour minimum wage, which is $4,000 below the poverty line for a family of three.
17,000,000……the number of women, who make up approximately 2/3 of low-wage workers, whose wages would rise.
28,000,000……the number of workers whose wages would rise.
$32,600,000,000……the increase in economic activity during the period it is being phased in.
$51,000,000,000…..the increased wages that workers would earn while it is being phased in.
As you can see from these numbers, it’s well past time to raise the minimum wage for all workers. So when it comes to the president’s plan to raise the wages of federal contractors, we’re just getting started. The Senate is going to vote on a bill to raise the minimum wage for everyone, no matter where they live. It’s time for the House of Representatives to do the same.
And while we’re getting started, here are five other big ideas to help create an economy that works for everyone.
BOTTOM LINE: Raising the minimum wage will provide Americans who work hard a better opportunity to get ahead while giving the economy a needed shot in the arm. With a higher minimum wage, workers will have more money to spend, which in turn gives businesses more customers—helping them to hire more workers. This will kick-start a growing economy that will create more opportunities for those who work hard.
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January 30th, 2014 at 8:58 pm
While the media was focused on Chris Christie and “Bridge-gate”, Congress moved closer to accepting a massive, international trade agreement. On Thursday, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators proposed legislation to give the Obama Administration the power to fast-track the Trans Pacific Partnership and other controversial trade deals. The White House welcomed the fast-track proposal, and issued a statement saying, “We need to use every tool we have to knock down trade barriers.”
If this legislation passes, the President could push through the TPP and other deals, and Congress would only get an up or down vote on whether or not to approve them. The TPP is the largest of these proposed deals, as it includes the U.S. and 11 Pacific Rim nations, and nearly all of its provisions have been negotiated in secret. The few sections of the TPP that have been leaked have exposed the danger of this trade deal – to our jobs, our environment, our civil rights, and even our national sovereignty. This massive trade agreement would even allow mega-corporations to challenge U.S. regulations that stand in the way of their unending greed.
We don’t need free trade, which drives down wages and sends more American jobs over seas, we need fair trade. And, we certainly don’t need to give corporations any more power to put profit over people. Congress must never give up their power to debate and amend trade agreements, and they must stop the Trans Pacific Partnership from destroying our jobs, our civil rights, and our national sovereignty. – See more at: http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2014/01/what-congress-does-when-were-not-watching?page=1#sthash.x8Y9aYJF.dpuf
February 1st, 2014 at 4:23 am
The reason I’m against the minimum wage is it hurts those who need the job the most. No one should interfere with this most basic of trade between an employee and an employer.
By the same token employers should not be allowed to conspire with others employers to keep wages low. Democrats and establishment Republicans should be defeated who don’t enforce our immigration laws. Same with those who are trying to pass weak immigration laws to dilute our vote and reduce wages.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:24 am
How many working at minimum wage have a history of voting? On the other hand, how many past voters have been, or are likely to be, adversely affected by the ACA? The vast majority of voters in 2014 will vote in furtherance of their economic interests. In that context, there is no way that the minimum wage issue is going to tip the balance in favor of the Democrats.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:25 am
Teenagers in the fast food industry only comprise 25% of the workforce. That means a whopping 75% of that workforce are adults that are living off those wages. A study showed that making all Walmart employees full time at $12/hr would raise the average shopping trip by 11 cents. A burger would go up around 18 cents. These miniscule price increases aren’t going to stop anyone from making these purchases.
The question is do you want to pay more taxes to provide these people with food stamps, medicaid, and housing assistance or do you want multi-billion dollar corporations paying their employees enough to live on? Because you can’t have it both ways. If you’re against a minimum wage increase then you’re FOR paying increased taxes to provide government benefits to these people. Which is it?
February 1st, 2014 at 4:27 am
Free Enterprise – let the profits and productivity dictate worker earnings. So simple.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:27 am
The larger the government, the smaller the citizen.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:28 am
The only way. Regulation as needed, not just because the regulating body exists. Most agencies and regulatory bodies, feel they must prove their reason for existing, so they must make MORE and more regulations.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:29 am
Say not to Bobo. Union dues are based on a percentage of the workers’ pay. Therefore, dues to the Grand PooBah increase when the wages increase. Of course their all in for the hike.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:30 am
This should be done. It is important. Even pressure for it would help.
But if they don’t extend the unemployment insurance, this won’t save them. Talk about something else won’t save them from leaving millions of unemployed with nothing, when there are no jobs to be had.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:31 am
I am curious why President Obama has not raised the minimum wage in over 5 years.He talks about income inequality but it has only grown under Obama.
Blacks’ median income has fallen 11.1% under Obama, more than twice as much as whites. The disparity in wealth between whites and blacks nearly doubled during Obama’s tenure. According to CNN, the median net worth of the average white person is now 22 times as much as the the average black person’s wealth, $110,729 to $4,995
At what point did fast food morph into sustaining a family? Those jobs often require a high school education or less. Why should we pay these people more but cut reimbursements to doctors under the Affordable Care Act. These people got their BA and in some cases spent 10 years med school, internship, residency. And their “salary” if you will is cut 30%? Everyone thinks doctors get rich but the dermatologist, hematologist/oncologist, pediatrician. podiatrist, family practice. I have several friends who fall under this and they don’t live in mansions or drive Mercedes. Anything but.The surgeons make the big bucks but shouldn’t they? Shouldn’t a guy who can replace a hip or knee be paid accordingly? If you say no then you go do it.
You may think it’s an unfair comparison but I don’t.How does flipping a burger or changing sheets in a hotel in any way compare to what doctors so. If you want to pay more then take additional classes on training. You should take the initiative to make yourself more marketable.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:31 am
The min. wage in Australia is $15 a hour. Paying people this amount of money means they can purchase things which makes the economy work. Americans have this insane idea that if one does not attend college, they deserve low wages, or industry cannot afford to pay people a good wage. Do you think the American trickle down economy is really working?
Take a good history lesson about wages and standard of living after WWII in America and ask what went wrong.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:32 am
Corrupt system and Americans are being shafted by it. Workers pricing there jobs out of existence. Companies just move their plants overseas, and then what have you gained. Very shortsighted.
Many dynamics, but the unions legacy costs and continual demands for ever increasing salaries, with no merit for it, except the demands, have forced businesses to make choices.
There has to be a compromise somewhere for the system to work.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:33 am
To be fair, the majority of economic rhetoric by politicians is not backed up by statistical correlation. It is mostly wishful thinking and truthiness.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:36 am
Only the gullible and weak-minded Obamabots will view it as an astounding heroic act, too stupid to absorb the fact that Very-Dim promises come at a very high price, such as seen with the ObamaRama health (s)care scheme which they’ll never live down.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:36 am
Who actually gets away with paying minimum wage?
I am a small employer, and it is already virtually impossible to find a decent employee for $10 an hour, and challenging at best for $12 an hour. BLS statistics bear this out — only about 2% of the workforce is paid the minimum wage:
http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2012.htm
The only people I know of who work for minimum wage are teenagers with no job experience who work part-time for some extra spending money.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:37 am
Coming from Norway/Scandinavia myself, it’s always interesting to contrast our society with the American. One particular difference is the labor-intensiveness on simple tasks found in US on s. It is of course nice to be pampered for by 5 different people in a hotel restaurant, but when one realize that these people perhaps have virtually no fixed income, it doesn’t taste all that good.
What would happen if the minimum wage was raised substantially? The workforce would move towards jobs with higher “return on investment”. Such jobs is the hallmark of a more modern society, so raising wages is in many ways the same as putting on the turbo charger for a modernizing effort – everybody will be more interested in automation where possible.
The flip side of it is that such a society cannot offer that many unskilled jobs. It definitely raised the bar for people with low education level or some kind of inability.
However, by offering a lot of jobs where wages really are too low to get by on, the fundamentals of economy has to some degree already decided – those jobs are simply not valuable enough. If people are still willing to work, it is because they are in a desperate situation. The parallel to slavery is not all that remote. Freedom is not just the absence of coercion, but real actual choices.
Is it at all possible to provide such real choices for everyone in the future? I’m not all that optimistic, but I can’t help but to applaud those that try.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:38 am
Barry#14, We can only hope they never live it down. This ”obamacare” name will live in infamy along with it’s infamous namesake. What is crazy about all this economic BS, it hurts everyone, of course, but I think it hurts the poor disproportionately more.
Blacks are far worse under obama than they were under Bush, statistics wise. The only reason they are not in the streets screaming racism, is obama is one of them….street thug, community agitator.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:40 am
If this plan succeeds, all of the workers currently making more than $7.25, but less than $10.10 will find themselves slammed back towards the poverty line.
You can not improve a person’s situation when you pay everyone more. In a very short time, the costs for basic goods and services (rent, food, childcare) will respond to the additional money in circulation and prices will rise; higher labor costs will also contribute to this rise in prices.
An economy exists in a dynamic balance; you can not change one aspect of this balance without unsettling others.
Of course, as this article outlines, this is a political move based on political motivations. Just another example of politicians acting for the benefit of their campaigns, to the detriment of society.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:40 am
Raising the minimum wage is a fine idea, but that phrase “income inequality” is not a good slogan, I think, unless one is amongst liberal politicians and their loyalists. Of course income is not equal!
As a clerk that stares at spreadsheets all day, I don’t expect to get paid as much as a highly trained professional (i.e., doctors) or a top sports star, but I do expect to get paid more than an unskilled or entry-level worker. To many, that phrase will come very close to the third rail phrase, “income redistribution”, which will certainly be an angle of attack for political opponents.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:41 am
I fully support raising the minimum wage.
But it’s important to remember that raising the minimum wage at a place like Walmart is not going to mean slightly less profits, while doing right by the people who work for them.
Those companies will maintain their profits first and foremost. And that means they’re going to use raising wages as an excuse to raise prices.
Demanding that companies do what’s right means nothing anymore. They don’t understand the concept.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:43 am
I agree “A Patriot”#17 The minorities and the poor working class have really taken a big hit during his term as prez. If one lesson is to be learned by the whole experiment is that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. I know a lot of employer’s would just let go obama supporters, I know it sounds mean, more than a means test.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:43 am
This is from The Bureau of Labor Statistics:
“Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the Federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers paid by the hour, about 21 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with about 3 percent of workers age 25 and over.” Source: http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2012.htm
The solution is straightforward – a bifurcated minimum wage based on age. Those over 23 years of age are paid a higher wage rate than those under. Those under 23 learn valuable skills in these jobs so that by the time they are 23 and older, they’re no longer being paid at minimum.
Of course, Walmart and the unions want higher minimum wages for selfish reasons. Walmart pays higher than minimum wage, hurting local mom and pop businesses – raising the minimum hurts small retailers. And unions peg many of their contracts directly to minimum wages at roughly 3X minimum – higher minimum wages equals higher base compensation for many union workers.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:45 am
“the more we focus on rebuilding the middle class with a minimum-wage increase, the more voters will support our candidates”
I am a proponent of raising the minimum wage which has lagged economic growth for years. But how is this an element of rebuilding the middle class? Is this guy serious. $10 and hour times 40 house times 52 weeks is just over $20k — middle class? If Democrats are serious about creating middle class jobs ($40k a year and over) they’ll support industries and give incentives for hiring.
I own two restaurants, and I can tell you this will take a big bite. Personnel is one of the biggest costs I have – way beyond marketing and real estate. The only similar cost is food. And this represents an increase of 40% for our least skilled employees. Hopefully, customers won’t mind a price increase to compensate.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:45 am
$10/hour by 2015? By the time that gets through the house and the senate we’d be lucky to see a dime. How about something a little more courageous (a quality sorely lacking in the Democratic Party) like $12/hour immediately?
February 1st, 2014 at 4:46 am
Oliver#21, Can you blame them. As part of the problem, they SHOULD be the first to go. If you vote for or support something that is detrimental, you are responsible for its consequences.
obama has lived up to the old cliche’ I have always known about corrupt politicians, they say anything, especially what their ”useful idiots” want to hear…..then do exactly what they wish to do. The ”useful idiots” aren’t smart enough to figure it out in time to do anything about it.
I have a friend that voted for obama in 08′, now just rails against him at what a liar he is, and all the things he has done, or not done, BUT, it’s too late now. He is in office and doing what he wants. She is mad, but can’t do anything about it. She didn’t vote for him in 12′.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:47 am
Democrats need an ssue, minimum wage, to pull in voters just like OmamaCare pulled in voters who were tricked into voting Democrat because they thought they would be getting free or cheaper health care insurance.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:47 am
The progressive agenda should be about strengthening the social safety net not over regulating wages. How about progressives start pushing for a minimum safety net and a progressive tax code to pay for it.
In the recent budget deal it was very telling that the sequester was broken by both sides to increase defense spending. Both sides strategy of buying votes is always in play. This clever ploy by the democrats is no different.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:47 am
Such transparent hypocrisy: the Democratic leadership for years fails to pursue this effectively, while cosseting their corporate backers and caving, compromising, or appeasing on every bedrock issue for the poor, from the public option and school funding to taxing the rich and the Iraq debacle. Did I mention the lax Wall Street oversight that blew up the world’s economy and hurt the poor the most?
Then, when it dawns on them that seeking a modest (to the point of embarrassment) increase in the minimum wage might give them an election “wedge” issue and bring more poor to the polls, they spring into action, like Superman jumping out of a phone booth.
I’ve come full circle with the least-worst party: I now understand why Ralph Nader, Greens, OWS, and other progressives are loathe to support them (save a handful of exceptions; e.g. Alan Grayson).
Indeed, it is as Mr. Nader stated: when we serve notice to the Democrats that we will walk away from them if they do not stake out our issues, they will then become a party of true progress and inspire something to support, rally around, and elect in larger numbers than ever before.
In the meantime, this cynical measure, an election bone thrown to the poor, will sustain the current lesser-of-two-evils nonsense.
Need I add that Mr. Nader was also well out in front on the minimum wage effort itself, working tirelessly to spotlight it? But now the Democratic leadership sprints to the front of this parade too. How pathetic.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:48 am
I support lower income employees making more money. However every economic study shows raising the minimum wage would lead to a reduction in employment. There should be no Federal or State minimum wage, period. This violates the principle of liberty of contract. Government should have no role in this. It should be left up to the market to determine the wage rates.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:49 am
‘Why would we want to make it harder for small employers to hire people?” Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio said.
That comment leaves a tremendous void once said. Noting follows. It shows no concern or thought for the American worker. It is as if the American worker is left out of the equation. The Republicans seem to be evading reality without thought of the American worker or how he or she must live and survive. Anyone paid $7.25 is below poverty. And the cost of living continues to rise and the price of essentials continues to soar.
Speaker Boehner and other Republicans need to go home and look at their paycheck stubs and think about what $7.25 means and how a family can live on that. The present wage perpetuates poverty and is the cause of a continuous struggle for millions.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:50 am
Jerry#26, There has always been ”buying votes” but the new democrat communist types have taken it to an entirely new level. This social justice concept is just starting to be implemented and heaven help us, if we don’t win the senate in 2014 and the presidency in 2016…..otherwise, it will all be over.
February 1st, 2014 at 4:52 am
Raising the minimum wage doesn’t hurt small businesses. You think a 10-employee company pays minimum wage? Well, consider this: how comfortable would you be, telling 9 people (who you know well) that they don’t deserve more. Especially if those people can look at your lifestyle, and see that the company is doing well.
A faceless corporation, on the other hand, can do this easily. All a manager has to say is “Well, sorry, but the home office sets strict guidelines on wages.” So, I find it very difficult to believe that a higher minimum wage would hurt small businesses and help big ones.