I came across some interesting numbers that for some reason are not making it into the media and indeed are not making it into the political discussion of the minimum wage. From the World Fact Book internet site
https://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/uk.html we learn:
GDP - per capita (PPP): $30,300 (2005 est.) United Kingdom versus $41,800 United States
Minimum wage: effective 10/06 $9.30 in the UK versus 5.15 in the USA.
So the Brit's minimum wage will be almost double the minimum wage in the US, while it is supported by the Brit's smaller economy's lower per person GDP.
Perhaps the Brits are not as greedy as the rich GOPers in the US?
The minimum wage as a poverty issue - unless we plan on letting folks starve and not be educated or dressed or given health care, we save no money by having a very low minimum wage.
Since Reagan the number of folks that live in poverty in America has doubled to 37 million people, and "amazingly" the number of full-time workers living in poverty has followed and indeed has more than doubled.
What is the economic point of view that our media is protecting by not stating that the very low minimum wage is causing a massive increase in poverty?
Indeed what part of the voters that are small business owners is the media afraid of - Gallup says that 86% of small business owners don't think that the minimum wage affects their businesses at all. Or is the media reflecting the wisdom of the very rich - the folks they, like the GOP, always cater to.
Do we really want the Wal-Mart business plan as the template for the US where everyone plans on high employee turnover because they are paying low wages? I though loyalty to the company, and company loyalty to their workers was the US ideal. And do we like living with culturally disruptive consequences of the ever increasing gap between the top 10% and the minimum wage workers - or the same disruption that is now occurring as the gap between the top 1/10th of 1 percent and the top 1%, and the gap between the top 10% and the top 1% keeps getting larger,
Economically the GOP position is a joke. Wages paid in the US total $5.7 trillion dollars a year and a minimum wage increase to $7.25 per hour would increase this by less than one-fifth of one percent. That is some big inflationary stimulus, all right. And our media is afraid to report this fact.
What a great Bush economy. We have productivity up by 18% in the Bush years as median household income has declined by 4%. Corporate profits grow 70% faster than the rate of inflation as worker's wages were decreasing for 4 years and only now have moved back to being a little bit ahead of where they started under Bush.