New Efforts Surface To Raise Minimum Wage

[CShine]

Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy hopes to put his Republican colleagues in the Senate in an awkward spot. Any day now he intends to attach a raise in the national minimum wage to a must-pass appropriations bill.
If it reaches the floor, senators will have to register their vote on a measure popular with a large majority of Americans - but opposed by groups representing restaurants, hotels, retail stores, health services, and other major employers of low-wage workers.

The question, as put by proponents, is: Are conservatives really compassionate or just saying they are?

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0915/p16s03-coop.html

[Gloria]

1. Good move! right into the "issues 2004" hopper!!! Go Teddy!

eom

[Nottingham]

2. Yes this would help Many Americans! Republicans would say No

No Way!

Republicans would fight this!

[TahitiNut]

3. It's about time.

[Evanstondem]

5. Thanks for the chart!

[mhr]

4. Just in Time to Help the Yale Workers!

See the DU link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[Democat]

6. Let Bush veto a higher minimum wage

Is there a better issue to illustrate his priorities going into 2004?

[Terwilliger]

7. must be communists proposing a minimum wage

Ive heard tale here at DU that $1.00 raise would gut the economy and kick everybody out of work.

[mbperrin]

8. That's right! Low wages make for a great economy!

Sure has done wonders for Haiti, the rural South, Laos, and many, many other economic wonderlands!

(You might just think that if people had enough money to spend - enough, mind you, not obscene billions of excess - that they might just buy something, and that somebody might have to make that something and get paid and so on. It's one of those vicious cycle things. Henry Ford, for all his other foibles, paid double wages for his day, and I don't seem to recall he died broke.)

While we're at it, shoot all the teachers and college professors! After all, they're trying to help people make higher wages, aren't they? Damn Communistic Terror economy-wreckers!

[phgnome]

9. The world has changed since the days of Henry Ford

The world has changed tremendously since the days of Henry Ford. No, I'm not a Republican supporter but I think raising minimum wage when the economy is in the toilet is like trying to use a a concrete block to try to unplug this toilet.

The world has changed since Henry Ford because now Ford is not the only company in the world with an assembly line. As well, the capital market has become far more sophisticated whereas in the days of Ford, it was much simpler and the demands for profits by shareholders weren't as great.

It worked for Ford because it was a novel idea at the time and there was no way to import cars. There was a lot less competition in the market for everything.

Raising minimum wage is a very bad move at the wrong time because of the existence of the global economy. In the days of Henry Ford, the global economy did not exist.

[w4rma]

11. American workers can't compete in the global economy anyway

American engineers, computer programmers and accountants can't compete with the engineers, computer programmers and accounants in India who work for $10K - $15K per year.

American factory workers can't compete with the Chinese who segregate their population into extremely poor 'rural' and middle class to extremely wealthy 'urban'. The 'rural' Chinese work for a few dollars a month. Yes, *month*.

I can't see how raising the minimum wage will hurt our economy. I can see how it will help folks who (more and more of whom) are working minimum wage service jobs in America.

[disgruntella]

10. oh no - that thread was about

saying a $1.00 raise in minimum wage wasn't worth fighting for because it wasn't enough, so we shouldn't support those efforts at all.