Minimum Wage Raise is the Least We Can Do to Civilize America

[Roverticus]

Some sparknotes from another gem of truth by economist Mark Weisbrot

The federal minimum wage is just $7.25 an hour and hasn’t been raised in three years. But a raise is much more overdue than that. If we look at the minimum wage 44 years ago, and simply adjust it for inflation, it would be more than $10 today.

This is another ugly symptom of what has gone wrong in America over the past 35-40 years. From 1979-2007 about 60 percent of the income gains have gone to the now infamous 1 percent at the top, with the majority of those gains going to the top 0.1 percent – people who made, on average, $5.6 million per year.

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There is currently legislation before Congress to raise the federal minimum wage from its current $7.25 an hour to $9.80, over three years...28 percent of the nation’s 76 million children would have a parent who would benefit from the raise.

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[R]aising the minimum wage doesn’t only cut into profits, it also increases demand in the economy by moving income to workers who spend more than those who receive profit.

In Brazil, the minimum wage was raised by 60 percent in real terms by the country’s most popular president, Lula da Silva – a former metal worker and union leader – as Brazil’s economy moved toward record-low levels of unemployment. Across South America, other left governments including Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela and more have significantly reduced inequality while increasing economic growth.

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It means that the U.S. political system is actually more corrupt and less democratic in very important ways than those of our developing country neighbors to the south.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/minimum-wage-raise-is-the-least-we-can-do-to-civilize-america

[4th law of robotics]

1. Pegging it to inflation

with mandatory yearly increases as the cost of living goes up in addition to reduction in the 40 hour work week (while increasing MW on top of the COLA to cover the reduction in hours) would make a lot of sense.

Keep at that until we're down to perhaps a 32 hour work week that one person can live on.

[demosincebirth]

2. Republicans want to lower it. They say in stifles business