Kucinich writes: "This Labor Day, President Obama has the opportunity to defend the economic rights of millions of Americans by supporting a substantial increase in the minimum wage."
A wage protest at Washington University in St. Louis. Bernstein argues that a national minimum wage increase is necessary to reduce problems of wage inequality. (photo: Huy Richard Mach/AP)
America Deserves a Raise
01 September 12
his Labor Day, President Obama has the opportunity to defend the economic rights of millions of Americans by supporting a substantial increase in the minimum wage.
Presently $7.25 per hour, the federal minimum wage is inadequate. The purchasing power of a worker earning minimum wage in 1968 is equal to $10-11 today. That means, at $7.25 an hour, workers today have less wage power than workers in 1968.
Consider that an individual working full-time and taking no vacation or sick time will earn only $1,160 per month. Housing costs alone in a neighborhood in my hometown of Cleveland can easily approach most of the income of a full-time employee earning minimum wage. What about food? What about transportation? What about health care? What about providing for children?
The minimum wage is not a living wage. Taxpayers, through financing a range of social programs, end up subsidizing corporations who do not pay a living wage. Every worker should be paid enough to meet the essential needs of his or her family. Economically secure families make stronger communities which in turn strengthens our nation. This Labor Day let's show that our nation values families by increasing the minimum wage to $10 an hour.
We know that some corporations won't like it. If corporations don't place value on the dignity, happiness or well-being of the American workers, then government must step in to protect workers' economic well-being. Workers are more than a line item in a corporate budget. The United States of America must be more than a profit-seeking machine. I am not suggesting a government handout, but a hand-up, enabling workers to climb out of a fiscal ditch.
The wealth in this nation has been accelerating upwards, leaving behind too many people who helped build America. The wealth that is produced by working Americans must be accessible to working Americans through an increase in the minimum wage. The Federal Reserve is incapable of stirring the economy, which is another reason to act. With unemployment at least 8.3%, an increase in the minimum wage will stimulate the overall economy.
Labor Day 2012. There can be no better way to honor the American worker then to support an increase in the minimum wage, to a living wage of at least $10 per hour. Workers deserve a raise. America deserves a raise. The President can show his recognition of workers by supporting H.R. 5901, Catching Up To 1968 Act of 2012, which would increase the minimum wage to $10 per hour. That would be one Happy Labor Day.
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Comments
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Without solidarity there is no general strike without general strike there is same old same old...
Ike moved us into the rubber tire economy and did not consider big military needed to assure imported oil flow would bring military industrial complex...
This writer your humble servant foresaw demolished local railway connectors leading to loss of energy independence and foreign entanglements along with the unending war footing...
Loss of energy independence and need to import oil paid for with borrowed money long ago ended America as a lending not a borrowing nation...
Good night.
And, yes, Barbara K, right on, although I do doubt if CEO's understand what they can or cannot afford, as engulfed in their greed and power over all addiction as they are. Unlike booze addicts (a.k.a. alcoholics), they don't pull back from driving while drunk, fearing for a DUI that suspends their license and/or gives them jail time. Ain't any aversive consequences for the villainaire rulers and/or the politican puppets. And, until there are strong aversives put into place (i.e. mandatory jail time for corporate theft, defrauding, failure to honor regulations, etc.), these evil addicts will continue to enslave us all.
The 1% CEO's,
giving the homeowner a refi), yet they already got paid through the bailout
(gave themselves raises or whatever). When they foreclose, they get a
second payout (double dipping) for the one property they're foreclosing
upon. To make matters even more egregious is the banksters let the
property taxes go into a delinquent state. This is allowed in all cities
and counties that a property can be delinquent in property taxes for up to
5 years before the State takes the property and puts it up for auction.
So, the banks then avoid paying the delinquent taxes by passing this
obligation onto the buyer of the foreclosed property.
This delinquency is causing vital services to be cut in each city and county of our fair state.
So, our local lawmakers should institute yet another cost saving/money generating law in that banks which foreclose on a home should be required to pay the
property taxes from day 1. Surely, they can afford it and they owe it to
the taxpayers of each city and county since we bailed them out because they
were "too big to fail" -- and they're failing us now yet again at every
turn.
Why when we got rid of slavery after the Civil War, SUPPOSEDLY, do we need a slave class now ... can we do better than that.
This is all about ripping people off, and that's why most products have gotten shoddy, food has gotten to where it is making us sick, we cannot afford even the shoddy houses ... things are not adding up because everything just gets sucked up to the top.
Good for you!
Punish Them!!!
Do some research, figure out who they are and what they sell and don't buy their stuff. Spread the word to your friends. Nag them until they do the same!
Nothing punishes a company more than when they lose their sales.
Own their stock? Find out and dump it! Tell your friends and nag them to do the same!
Hurt the bastards! Cut off their sales!
Plenty of good American manufacturers trying to do right by their help. Shop with them! Means shopping on the internet, but by so doing you can save traffic hassles and pumping unnecessary carbon dioxide into the air.
I like the idea partially. But this defect is a killer ... the whole point of a safety net is so people cannot blow it.
I think there should be like a minimum living wage, provided for people as part of infrastructure, then the minimum wage can go away and people could afford to work for what they are worth - so if you are just starting a career, you may want to just volunteer, and you have your basics covered by the government so you can afford to do that.
The biggest problem we have today is keeping the rotten people NOT WORKING so they don't screw stuff up. Let them get credits going to school and bettering themselves - that is something we ought to pay for and it would be worth it.
give people a minimum, a base, and if they want make it available for them to climb up and out of that - some will not.
It would seem fairly easy to say that businesses who employ under 25 workers could pay less than minimum wage. Although labor is one of things you can write off in business. I would also incorporate a clause that says you dont get any writeoffs for setting up a shop overseas or for labor that you employ overseas.
It's like the web a place where the labor is poorly paid except for the stars who ever they are.
Why are you pretending that Kucinich said or een hinted at anything of the kind/ Why are you pretending to be engaged in a dialog seeking understanding when all you really want is to demonstrate how 'clever" you think you are?
Holding some kind of personal or abstract grudge whilst offering nothing in the way of suggestions or solutions is not exactly a way to get anything done or proposed.
Personal attacks without basic verifiable fact, thereby stimulating illuminating debate, are about as welcome and productive as a fart in a space-suit and all to common on the right.
We are listening to, or reading, the words of one true leader who has stuck to his guns consistently for many years and whom the owner-media have discredited for calling them on their wanton lies, and who will no longer be in office come January 2013, as a result of a nasty piece of political redistricting which in any alleged "democracy" should be illegal.
So what's y'r point -if you have one?! You have no point but personal and it's therefore moot.
Why do you pretend to sound "wiser" and more "analytical" than you seem to be?
Give us the facts and the foils mate!
Fact-checkers are apoplectic over the outright LIES that Republicans are repeating in a determined effort to buy/lie this election. Medicare being changed to a voucher system where the insurance companies will charge us LESS? Again: what are you smokin'?
I could go on and on. But one thing keeps coming to mind: In all the speeches, the Republicans keep saying that they will increase jobs, make our world better, etc., usually without specifying exactly what tool they intend to use to accomplish these ends. But they have blocked every single effort by Obama to do the same. Who's got your back, ecoforestree? If the Republicans really want to help the average American citizen, WHY DIDN'T THEY WORK WITH THE ELECTED PRESIDENT TO DO SO OVER THE LAST 4 YEARS?
" We are going to ensure that Obama is a one term president "
Upon, hearing that, I nearly smashed my tv in rage, at the audacity of that man, and his one way party.
I am voting Dem completely down the line, because there simply isn't any other choice.
Doesn't Dennis know that there are investment bankers starving and wasting away to mere shadows of themselves on Wall Street?
Not to mention all the weapons manufacturers living hand to mouth and lined up at soup lines all over the damn country, and insurance company CEO's desperately hanging on to life by ever fraying threads?
Sheesh. What's the world coming to when simple con artists like the president have barely enough support to make a second term anymore?
And this used to be such a great country.
Whatever happened to "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
So let's begin with the minimum wage - it's a beginning.
In the meantime, please vote 2012 - and drag out all who can vote also. Do NOT be afraid to tell your friends/relativ es truths - even if "they" heard false at the RNC or on FAUX -
VOTE OBAMA and straight DEM (or "Bye bye American Democracy") - I cannot sing either!
Our country has had a rating of over a 46 since the year 2000! Our rating before the Great Depression was estimated at a 45! Most developed countries have a rating in the high 20's to mid 30's.
The higher the number, the more the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few.
America's best rating in the last 50 years was in 1968 at a 38. Coincidentally, (not), the minimum wage had the most buying power and middle class America was at it's strongest!
Anyone who tells you that we can't afford a min. wage hike is either a wealthy money hoarder, or out of touch with reality.
A min. wage hike would raise wages for those near the bottom, increase demand, and increase revenue for our government! But, most of all, it would pull some cash out of greedy bass-turds hands that have been hoarding their wealth, refusing to invest in our country!
But what the USA needs even more are "living wages." Those are the kind that allow people to live a good life and spend money in the economy. Unfortunately that is just what Republicans have fought against for years as they cater to their 1% backers.
LadyD
We could have all that stuff Dick, if the "Boner" and the republicans would quit blocking everything for people, by voting NO on everything for the people.
Why would you begrudge people who want to make a semi decent living wage? No one is saying gimmie...why should we give the corporations corporate welfare...do the oil companies who are raking in billions in profit need government subsidies? NO they dont, but they get them (corporate welfare). Why arent you griping about the corporations that are saying gimmie gimmie...nooo just keep trashing the regular people for trying to survive, thats the republican way. Trash the poor and middle class while propping up and never talking about how our money props up these greedy corporations.
Mitt Romney is not going to do anything but deregulate business and it will be like Bush on steroids.
Dick - As usual, you sound like a dick with your response. I am a leftie and I've worked since I was 13 years old. I take your stupid LEFTIE comments as a personal insult. And you think the Right - as opposed to us Lefties - are likely to "Expand access to Medicare & let Medicare do prescriptions"? What are you smokin'? Ryan and Romney want to replace Medicare with private sector vouchers. God help us all. But if I were to play Devil's Advocate: If you are proposing that this country EXPAND access to Medicare - a big impediment to a balanced budget - then aren't YOU the one saying Gimme Gimme?
Dems had landslide victory, huge progressive majority in House, filibuster proof majority in Senate, & nation dying for Real Change, Real Reform. ObamaDems gave US Bush lite. Sucks.
No brains, no guts, just Wall St. pardon. Sell-out. Betrayal.
NO, ALL that will happen is that the corporate profits will go down. The money is there, it always has been there, and there is always more than enough to go around.
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