$7 Minimum Wage - - How to answer a question.

[Jane Austin]

It's short, it's true and it will get our people to the polls.

TV Punkdit: But the Democrats don't have any ideas.

Dem: $7 Minimum Wage. How's that for an idea? First week of new Congress. $7 Minimum Wage.

* * * *

I decided to start my own thread with this because of another thread asking about Democratic ideas.

There were lots of good suggestions, but I didn't think some of them were punchy and short enough to get in before Tweety, Hannity, etc interrupted.

Here are some rules I think we should keep in mind when answering what our ideas are.

1. Should be short.

2. Easy to understand - - Impossible to misunderstand

3. Doesn't beg for clarification or discussion.

4. Will motivate our base to the polls.

5. Should not come across as just a notion to bat around. If you think a $10 living wage is more ideal, well, of course it is! But you're not going to get all Dems and some Pubs to go allong with that today. Besides, this isn't an Ideal, it's an idea. That's what they're asking for. They are not asking for a discussion.

When the country sees the economic boost of a $7 minimum wage, it will be much easier to get a higher one.

Once this idea (or another one you like better) is firmly implanted in everyone's unconscious, we move on to another one.

Does anyone have any other rules of thumb to measure an idea that can be expressed in a soundbite - - or before Tweety interrupts?

Once we have a list of good ideas, we right here on DU can make sure the expression of them isn't fuzzy or unclear.

Then we start using the idea in ourletters to the editor, or to Jack Cafferty's comment box and especially to our Congresspeople.

Dammit, it they won't learn how to express themselves clearly, let's show them how to do it.

What do you think?


(edited to correct bolding)

[Selatius]

1. Go to 9 dollars an hour

Write the law so that the minimum wage AUTOMATICALLY adjusts yearly according to inflation.

[Jane Austin]

3. I'm sorrry.

That's just not the point of my OP.

What I'm trying to get people to look at is how to answer these idiot media people when they give you one nano-second to answer, if that.

It's the framing I'm talking about, not a discussion of the ideal minimum wage.

Saying "$7 minimum wage" doesn't restrict you to that in an actual bill. It's an answer people will hear.

I'm only talking about how we come across to the public.

[LA lady]

2. well, it's higher

Isn't it already higher than that in some states?

[Jane Austin]

4. I give up.

I just freaking give up.

[lildreamer316]

20. I feel your pain

here in NC.

[MissMarple]

5. How does the minimum wage relate in adjusted dollars to the 70's & 80"s?

All wages are falling behind, I believe, but the minimum wage is the most stagnant. People need to see those numbers every day. I wonder if any progressive organization would donate for a billboard campaign with the minimum wage as one segment. It's expensive, but it could be worth it.

On edit: I hear you. Like a chicken in every pot.

[Selatius]

7. Minimum wage was highest in the late 1960s, actually

Adjusted according to inflation, it was 8 dollars and change in today's value. It's lost 45% of that since then.

[Jane Austin]

9. Thanks.

I'm glad you heard me.

[TahitiNut]

33. Here ya go ...

[sandnsea]

6. Stay on message

A direct to the point message. Of course you're right, but as you see, Democrats always have a better idea. (Who says we're the party of no ideas?) And when you point out that not staying on message hurt this or that campaign or policy agenda - well, nobody did that, you're friggin' crazy!!

[Jane Austin]

8. Thanks, SnS.

This little thread was an eye-opener for me.

Dems would rather argue than be heard, and we haven't learned a thing from the Republicans rolling us at so many elections.

Thanks for your response.

[Jane Austin]

10. Anybody?

I realize 4 posts about Ann Coulter and 5 about Jeb Bush on the front page are way more important . . .
:sarcasm:

. . . but doesn't anybody think this subject of how we can be heard is important?

I don't see how we win elections if nobody hears a clear message from us.

This thread sank like a stone, so I guess I'm out of step with DU, but we know our positions are on the right side of the issues, so how come we can't hammer home a clear message?

Anybody?

[Asgaya Dihi]

14. Agreed on substance, but there's concerns

The minimum wage today sucks and a person can't support themselves on it, or come especially close to it. I agree 100% that it needs to be raised but before we make it a central issue we've got to figure out how to better deal with the accusations that it will cost jobs by forcing people to be laid off or not hired in the first place. That's always been the biggest problem for the debate in the past, and till we've got a more solid answer for it than we've offered in the past it might just detract from stronger issues such as health care.

I liked the idea I heard the other day about removing the provision that stops the government from negotiating for better prices with the drug companies, there are other good "catch phrase" arguments that might survive better in the crap we have to deal with today for the media. Do it no doubt, but I'm not sure we should run on wages.

[Jane Austin]

26. But my OP isn't about what our legislative program will be.

It is about getting a Dem IDEA heard over the din of RW punditry.

[MazeRat7]

11. $7 or $70 it doesn't really matter what number you put out there....

Bottom line, corps deal with OPEX (operational expenses - ie salaries) So you can fly any number you want to "entice" the voting public, but at the end of the day, its going to bite them in the ass via higher living expenses.

The reality is that raising the minimum wage translates to raising the cost of living. By that statement I mean, business (big or small) are going to pass that increase along to consumers. So when its all said and done, the working poor will still be poor and the US consumer will be no better off than he/she is today.

MZr7

edit: syntax

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. So how come it seemed easier to afford things in the 1960s?

Oregon raised its minimum wage a few years ago. The only effect I saw was that the local restaurants' $5.95 lunch specials went to $6.95.

[sandnsea]

21. Oregon's waitresses get minimum wage

Most states don't require waitresses to be paid minimum wage, Oregon does. But I actually didn't see too much increase in prices directly related to minimum wage. The small business owners I know are complaining about gas prices and costs of goods going up because of that, and have been for a year or more.

The real difference the 60's stockholders and business owners didn't take as big a share, leaving plenty of money to pay the worker. Labor used to be 50% of business cost, now it's 30-35%. Cost of goods is now based on what buyers will pay and seem to me to be set to the top 20-30%. There's no logic to a $150 pair of jeans made with the same $1 a day labor as a pair of $20 jeans. That $130 is going somewhere and not to labor, not here or overseas.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

32. Good point!

Same with athletic shoes. I buy athletic shoes at Payless Shoe Source, because they're made in the same sweatshops as Nikes, but without the costs of the endorsement fees paid to athletes or Phil Knight's stock options tacked on.

I knew that wait staff in Oregon are paid minimum wage. The Republicans keep trying to exempt people who get tips from receiving minimum wage.

[sandnsea]

36. Just adding all the info

I suspected you knew, I just wanted all the info out there. It goes right to the argument about labor and prices. We pay a teensy bit more in meal prices so our waitresses can get $5.00 more an hour, some waitresses in this country are still working for little more than $2.40 plus tips. I've read that the bigger problem for restauranteurs in Oregon is our liguor laws because they don't get the profit from hard drinks. But even though all the facts and studies are out there, we still get the same bullshit minimum wage arguments.

[Yupster]

25. Did it seem easier to afford things in the 60's?

We sure have an awful lot more stuff today thatn we did back then.

We had one car, one black and white tv, and no air conditioning.

I think people who say things were better back then aren't remembering how they lived.

Now for sure people were nicer, kids were more polite, life seemed safer. When I was 12 I would look for National Geographics to see topless natives. Today any 12 year old can see any kind of porn in unlimited amounts that he wants to.

So in many ways life was better back then, but I wouldn't say it was economically better. We live far, far better today than back then.

My first job was Burger King and paid 2.15 an hour. Minimum wage was 2.15. This would have been in 1975 or so.

[misanthrope]

35. Now it's just under...

...three times that amount.

A nice, mid-sized, brand new car in '75 would have run you around $4000. That same car now is almost five times that amount.

In '75, $25,000 dollars got you a pretty nice home, something you could settle a family into with no problem. That same house is now five to six times as costly.

[W_HAMILTON]

18. "[businesses] are going to pass that increase along to consumer"

Like they don't find reasons to do that already?

[sandnsea]

19. Proven to be untrue

Low wage workers spend money in their local economies so an increase in the minimum wage is actually the best way to boost local economic growth.

http://www.keystoneresearch.org/mediacenter/pressreleases/2006/PR033106.htm

[MazeRat7]

31. Well keystone better get another analyst... cause thats not correct...

Specifically concerning the fortune 50 company I work for.... as salary (or hourly-labor) cost increase, so does the price of the end product. There is a direct relationship between "Cost per box" and margin.. margin being the holy grail from a corporate perspective. Every time we have increased pay or material costs (increase in cpb)... our margins have remained the same... how ? Generally buy charging the consumer more. Econ 101....
Granted the workers that produced this product will influx more $$ into that local economy, but the price of the goods they produce will also increase which will have a negative impact on a different economy. Generally one with a much larger scale than local.

MZr7

edit: to clarify cpb increases are offset by price increases to keep margins flat

[TahitiNut]

34. Isn't it amazing prices keep going up but the minimum wage hasn't?

Gee ... same minimum wage since 1997 and wages and salaries have gone down for the last 6 years, but them prices just keep on risin'. Yeah ... it must be raising the minimum wage that's to blame. Uh-huh. Sure. (Let's just ignore the fact that this has been debunked repeatedly. After all, we've had more than a few increases in the minimum wage in over 60 years and no study has supported this claim yet.)

:eyes:

(Hmmm... I wonder how raising the high-end 1%-5% effects prices? Naww... couldn't be. No. Of course not. We'd NEVER hear that, would we?)

:puke:

[MazeRat7]

38. I am just relating facts about this one very large company....

I don't care how many "studies" there have been... I am telling you from first hand knowledge that cost increases (be they material or labor) are passed directly to the consumer.

Now ask yourself... if this one fortune 50 company of which MZr7 speaks does that as regular practice... what are the other large companies out there doing ?

I am sure there are plenty of "studies" that attempt to debunk this reality as I am sure there an equal number that attempt to support it. Like I said.. I am simply relating "real world experience".... this is what the company I currently work for does - as have the previous large cap companies I have worked for. This is pretty standard corp domination stuff...

Take it as fact or continue to deny... thats your call. :wtf:

MZr7

edit: typo

[sandnsea]

39. Gosh

Keystone probably hired analysts who had completed more than Econ 101 which is why they know there's alot more that goes into pricing than cost of labor and goods. Of course, Republicans know that too, but they also know that the simpleness of costs and prices works on people who aren't thinking about taxes, wage subsidies, losses, and a whole host of things that go into the bottom line.

[sheelz]

22. It cuts into their profits...

:nopity:

[Pobeka]

12. You are absolutely right.

We (dems, progressives, whatever) are willing to argue in infinite detail about the nuance of any given issue, but when it comes to the process of actually getting the idea across and into the voter's minds, we can't get the job done and fall completely and totally flat. I realize that's a broad brush but in general it's true.

I have argued before on this board that we have to think about the psyche of not those who are going to vote for us anyway, but rather the psyche of the swing voters. Yes, that means all categories of people, intelligent people who are just too busy to do real research all the way to gun-toten' rednecks.

It means being willing to frame the issues.

It means being willing to pick the issues we will talk about, and push them to the fore rather than being reactionary to the issues that Rove & Co pick for the media to spew out.

Keep plugging away janeaustin -- you have hit one of the important nails squarely on the head.

[madmunchie]

15. Good Idea, simple, direct and to the point

Something that should be included in the Dems strategy for changeing the status quo.

You are right about the eye-opener...many just like to pick apart and find fault.

[Jane Austin]

27. Thanks. I hope we can all learn to frame things simply.

It's not the art of legislation or of understanding an issue perfectly.

It's abouit haveing a simple message people can hear.

Thansk again.

[Pobeka]

16. kick n/t.

[WCGreen]

17. Fix Social Security and stimulate small business by cutting the rate

and lifting the cap....

[athena]

23. Yes!

I would even go to $8/hour, since I don't believe any state has $8 as its minimum wage.

The inability to state ideas clearly is not the main problem with democratic politicians. Frankly, their lack of spine is a much bigger problem. No democrat will ever have the nerve to suggest something like increasing the minimum wage to $8/hour, because they're afraid of offending the corporations who pay for their elections, and they're afraid of being labeled "socialist".

Health care for everyone! Full funding of social security by taxing the top 2% of earners! A schedule for getting out of Iraq! These are also simple and straightforward ideas supported by the majority of the public, but you won't hear any prominent democrat propose them.

[Jane Austin]

28. I agree that stating things clearly and simply isn't the worst thing

about Dem politicians, but it is what keeps our campaign messages from being heard.

[sheelz]

24. Study: How much is enough?

How much is enough?
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/books_howmuch

Family budgets tend to follow the pattern of the one that follows, which we prepared for this study. The amounts are monthly estimates for a family of four (two parents and two children) living in Baltimore:

* Food: $500 for the minimum amount a family needs to spend for food prepared at home, as recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Low-Cost Food Plan.
* Housing: $628 for a two-bedroom apartment that costs no more than 40% of all safe and decent housing, as measured by the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Fair Market Rents.
* Health care: $267, an amount that recognizes that not all families receive health insurance through their employers. We use a weighted average of the employee share of the premium for employer-sponsored health insurance and the premium costs for a non-group plan, plus the cost of out-of-pocket medical expenses.
* Transportation: $222 for miles driven for work and other necessary trips. This amount takes into account different driving distances for cities, suburbs, and rural areas, and is based on the cost-per-mile estimates from the Internal Revenue Service.
* Child care: $626 for center-based child care or family child care centers, as reported by a local child care cost survey (when available) or in a Children's Defense Fund study.
* Other necessary expenses: $338 for the cost of telephone service as reported by the Federal Communications Commission, and the cost of clothing, personal care, household items, bank fees, union dues, reading materials, school supplies, and television as reported in Consumer Expenditure Survey data.
* Taxes: $313 for federal payroll taxes and federal, state, and local income taxes. This expense also takes into account funds received through the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

Thus, a family of four in Baltimore would need an annual income of $34,732.28 just to meet its basic needs and achieve a safe and decent standard of living. But at this basic level, it would have to give up many "unnecessary" goods that most families take for granted, including restaurant (even fast-food) meals, vacations, movies, and savings for education, retirement, and emergencies.

Few jobs in the low-wage sector of the labor market provide compensation that would enable working families to meet the basic needs costed out in these budgets. Thus, either low-wage workers supporting their families need higher-paying jobs, or their budget needs will have to be further subsidized. A combination of improved labor market policies, nationalized systems for important budget items like health care and child care, and subsidies to support working families are important steps that should be taken to secure even just a basic, no-frills standard of living for American working families.

[Jane Austin]

29. Does anybody have another clear and simple message we can put to the

test?

Remember, it's not the ultimate legislation we are after, nor is it for fixing the all the problems in the Democratic party.

It's about having a clear and simple message that can be heard by busy people over the din of yakking teevee heads.

Thanks.

[B Calm]

30. $7.00 an hr = $14,560 dollars a year.. I don't believe anyone

could live off that! We need a livable minimum wage!!

[Jane Austin]

40. Yes we do, but the reason I chose $7 is that that is the number Ted

Kennedy uses.

I figured that for political purposes, in a television pundit show "$7 Minimum Wage!" was all that one of ours could squeeze in before being shouted down.

I think it's likely that living wage legislation is going to be coming from the bottom up - - as it has so far: In Santa Fe, for one place. I believe Florida has a higher minimum wage than the national one, too.

But let me reiterate: The ultimate legislation is not what is important in getting a campaign slogan heard.

Clarity and Simplicity are what matter.

That's absolutely ALL my OP was about. :)

[Kansas Wyatt]

41. They need to go back to the introduction of minimum wage

And examine how it covered the cost of living (nothing omitted) back then. Then a formula needs to be installed to update the minimum wage to today's cost of living, comparable to the introduction level, with a mandatory update every two years.

[madeline_con]

37. No Underclass.

Can we get that sound byte in?

NO underclass of low-paid immigrant workers undermining the middle class, and forcing wages down. No legalization of illegal border crossing.