Senate votes for minimum wage increase
$7.25 an hour.
That’s what the minimum wage will be if a Senate bill, passed 94-3 yesterday, is reconciled with a House bill that was passed a few weeks ago. (President Bush supports the Senate bill.)
The Senate bill includes moderate tax cuts for small businesses, a necessary trade-off to secure Republican support. House Democrats may not support including this and other trade-offs in reconciled legislation, but they should make the effort to compromise.
Although I would like to see an increase in the minimum wage passed with no strings attached, the reality is that strings must be attached if any increase is to pass. And what matters most here is that the working poor, currently stuck with a shockingly low minimum wage of $5.15, a wage that hasn’t been increased in a decade, could use the additional $2.10 an hour. I am ashamed to say that I spend about that much just on coffee every morning. To the working poor, that much could mean putting food on the table for their children and paying the heating bill.
The priority should be clear.
4 Responses to “Senate votes for minimum wage increase”
Of course that $2.10 is spread out over two years.
Given the shocking amount of remuneration a CEO with even a mediocre record gets, I’d say its long overdue. The argument that is always given that jobs will be scarcer is already true- manufacturing jobs are leaving by the droves. It is getting harder for those without a college education to earn a living. Also, the poor will end up putting the money back into the economy, because even $7.25 an hour won’t leave much left for savings.
PB had an interesting segment about the minimum wage.
A pizza parlor owner, with a profit of about $200,000 was lamenting that he would have to cut workers’ hours. Another businessman, who hires ex-cons and pays above minimum wages, suggested the first man should consider cutting his own profit margin or selling the business, if he he was so unhappy with it.
This made me think about the profit expectations of business owners. large and small. Newspapers laying off reporters often make a godd profit, but there is an expectaion that profits and share price constantly increase. Is it that they’re competing for share holders?
Why can’t a business reach a comfort stage, making a good profit, but unwilling to punish employees or quality in the drice for more and more profit?
Anybody care to give me a quick economics lesson?
Didn’t see the segment, but the first thing that comes to mind is that the $200,000 figure is (mostly) meaningless without knowing a total revenue figure. It’s profit margin that gives you a good perspective on how healthy a business is. So how much did he bring in in sales for the year to end up with the $200K? If he sold $10 million, his 2% profit isn’t looking so great . . .