Minimizing Minimum Wage

According to the blog of the United Steel Workers, which in turn relied on data from the AFL/CIO, income inequality in the United States is worse than it’s been in a century.  Despite that, conservative Missouri legislators seem to want to make things worse for the working class in that state.

In the last days of August 2017,, a new law lowering the minimum wage in St. Louis went into effect.  That legislation removed about $2.30 an hour from the paychecks of the city’s lowest-paid and most vulnerable workers.

Once again to quote the AFL/CIO, working families shouldn’t struggle to put food on the table or afford the basics.  Anti-worker politicians in Missouri have put the interests of their millionaire donors ahead of regular working families.

How much money does a low-wage family in St. Louis stand to lose annually, as a result of this law?  $4784.00 will be taken away from every full-time minimum wage worker in St. Louis and Kansas City.

Education, Education, Education

No one could be more Western-Pennsylvania working class than my family.  Neither could too many better demonstrate the value of education.

Don't get me wrong.  Neither the Petrovskys or the Boytims have ever been among the affluent.  But we've all recognized that, in order to be effective within family and community, we must be reasonably well-schooled.

How can one be an active and capable participant in our democracy if one does not understand how that democracy is structured, and how it functions?  The idea of a significant portion of the electorate failing to understand First Amendment protections scares the living daylights out of me.  From such situations, dictatorships can arise.

Civics classes, anyone?

The Working Poor as Philanthropists

Journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, in  her 1996  book Nickled and Dimed, investigated many of the difficulties low wage workers face.  Ehrenreich documented those troubles by spending months undercover.  Foremost among the problems were:

• the hidden costs of shelter.  The poor often spend more on daily hotel costs than they would on renting an apartment, since they can't afford a security deposit and first-and-last month fees.
• food.  The poor have to buy food that is both more expensive and less healthy than if they had access to refrigeration and appliances needed to cook.

Ehrenreich concludes that low-wage workers, recipients of government services like welfare, food, and health care, do not deserve the appellation welfare queen.  These workers do far more than live off the generosity of others. Ehrenreich suggests we live off their generosity:

When someone works for less pay than they can live on ... they make a great sacrifice for you .... The "working poor" ... are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone.

Low-Info Voters

If they are to benefit from living in a democracy, those in the working class must be better-informed as to the nature of that democracy.

In the Trump era, these folks, and in particular white males over the age of 50 and without a post-high school education, seem to be becoming less and less knowledgeable about their government, and more and more subject to manipulation by demagogues.  Consider, for instance, the voter fraud commission established by the Trump administration.

In testimony before that commission today (09/12/17), John Lott promoted what is, IMHO, a truly wacko idea.  Lott suggested that the background check system that is used to clear gun purchasers should be used on those seeking to vote.

Got that, blue-collar white males?  If those who you think are in your corner, those to whom you look for help in making America great again (news flash, dudes - it's always been great), those who present themselves as populists, succeed in their efforts to restrict voting, you might be among the first to suffer the consequences.  Let me put it to you this way - can you guess the number of jelly beans in a jar?

The Trump voter fraud commission kind of reminds me of Martin Niemoller ...  Not to mention the Voting Rights Act ...

FDR's 2nd

According to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, necessitous men are not free men.  He pointed out what to progressives has always been apparent - people who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

Roosevelt argued further that freedom for individuals cannot be sustained without economic security and independence.  It was upon this premise that FDR, in his State of the Union address of 1944, introduced the idea of a second Bill of Rights, under which, he maintained, a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all — regardless of station, race, or creed.

Fast forward to today.  Minimum wage, in many parts of the United States, would offer neither security nor prosperity.  What's more, there's a WTF:  not every state provides for a minimum wage.  So, the first two items in Roosevelt's new Bill:

• the right to a useful and remunerative job
• the right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation

would be difficult to achieve in, say, Mississippi.  And even at the minimum wage of $7.25 set by the Federal government and adhered to by about 60% of the country, a household of two would be below the poverty level.