Minimum Wage: Who Decided That Hard-Working Americans Should Fall Behind?

[marmar]

Beat the Press / By Dean Baker

Minimum Wage: Who Decided That Hard-Working Americans Should Fall Behind?
There is no economic reason why those at the bottom should not share in the gains from economic growth.

February 19, 2013 |


It was encouraging to see President Obama propose an increase in the minimum wage in his State of the Union address, even if the $9.00 target did not seem especially ambitious. If the $9.00 minimum wage were in effect this year, the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage would still be more than two percent lower than it had been in the late 1960s. And this proposed target would not even be reached until 2015, when inflation is predicted to lower the value by another 6 percent.

While giving a raise worth more than $3,000 a year to the country's lowest paid workers is definitely a good thing, it is hard to get too excited about a situation in which these workers will still be earning less than their counterparts did almost 50 years ago. By targeting wage levels that roughly move in step with inflation we have implemented a policy that workers at the bottom will receive none of the benefits of economic growth through time. In other words, if we hold the purchasing power of the minimum wage fixed through time, as the country as a whole gets richer, minimum wage workers will fall ever further behind.

It is important to realize that this was not always the case. The federal minimum wage was first put in place in 1938. From that year until 1968 when its value peaked, the purchasing power of the minimum wage increased by more than 140 percent. As a result, minimum wage workers saw a sharp increase in their living standards. Over this 30 year period, low wage workers shared in the gains of the economy as a whole as the minimum wage rose in step with productivity growth.

If workers at the bottom had continued to share in the economy's growth in the years since 1968 as they had in the three decades before 1968, we would be looking at a very different economy and society. If the minimum wage had risen in step with productivity growth it would be over $16.50 an hour today.That is higher than the hourly wages earned by 40 percent of men and half of women. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/economy/minimum-wage-who-decided-hard-working-americans-should-fall-behind

[riverbendviewgal]

1. Here is recent list of the minimum wage in Canada

bear in mind we all have health care

http://canadaonline.about.com/od/labourstandards/a/minimum-wage-in-canada.htm

Updated: 02/01/13

These minimum wages are the minimum hourly wage rates set by the provinces and territories in Canada for experienced adult workers.

Province General Wage
Alberta $9.75
BC $10.25
Manitoba $10.25
New Brunswick $10.00
Newfoundland $10.00
NWT $10.00
Nunavut $11.00
Ontario $10.25
PEI $10.00
Quebec $9.90
Saskatchewan $9.50
Yukon $10.30

[Autumn]

2. My best guess would be politicians, some of whom

struggle to make ends meet on $174,000 per year. I have seen people mopping floors making minimum wage that show more dignity than most of those clowns.

[indepat]

3. Our corporatist government which, imo, acts almost solely in the interest of large corporations

and the most affluent at the detriment of the rest of society: the irrefutable proof of this assertion is found in its body of works.

[rhett o rick]

4. Wealth used to be very easy to create. Rape the enviornment as one way.

Now it's getting tougher to create wealth as the environment is objecting to being raped. So it's easier to steal wealth. Mittens would call it "harvesting". That not only applies to corporations but also humans. The elite are harvesting us. Moving our wealth from us to them. The nitwitted RW object to anyone dare trying to move wealth from the 1%, even for paying their fair share. But these same nitwits are ok if wealth is moved from us to the 1%. Go figure. Our elected representatives (?) are in on the theft. I see no way of stopping this without revolution. I dont condone it and dont think it will work out good, but that what I think will eventually happen.