LA Times: Living wages are key to poverty eradication

[Omaha Steve]

Marta asked me to post this. :-)

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-appleby-20100614,0,1173808.story

The poor need not always be with us. That goal can be achieved if we ensure that workers are paid enough to feed their families.

Joyce Appleby

June 14, 2010 | 7:54 a.m.

Advocates for the poor are pushing against the same obstacles that 18th century opponents of slavery confronted: acceptance of an evil because of its familiarity. It's hard to be outraged by a condition that's been around for millenniums. Even the Great Emancipator despaired of ending poverty.

Quoting Scripture, Abraham Lincoln said that the poor will always be with us. That attitude once applied to slavery. Then, with remarkable suddenness, the idea of abolition aroused a cadre of reformers who changed public perceptions in less than a century.

So do we really have to accept that poverty is too firmly entrenched to ever be dislodged?

A worldwide movement is gaining momentum to disrupt complacency about poverty, and one of its centers is right here in Los Angeles. For nearly two decades, a robust social movement has been devising creative solutions that meld progressive ideals with a pro-business approach to ensure that people with jobs can actually provide for their families.

Its first victory came when it guided through the L.A. City Council a living-wage ordinance in 1997. Today more than 100 municipalities from San Diego to New York have passed ordinances mandating living wages for city employees and those employed by companies doing business with the city. Wages vary depending on prevailing local rates and which benefits are included.

Like slavery, the issue the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy addresses is an old one. Two hundred years ago, the British radical William Cobbett denounced the cruelty of jobs that kept sober and industrious workers fully employed but did not pay them enough to feed their families.

FULL story at link.

[SocialistLez]

1. Stating the obvious............NT

[musette_sf]

2. * No Sh!t Sherlock

* Captain Obvious

* Well DUH!!

* (insert your phrase here)

[provis99]

3. Poverty is a necessary requirement for a capitalist system.

If we try to eliminate poverty, that will lead to skyrocketing inflation, a reduction in the labor reserve pool, and a collapse of the economy. The result of fiddling with wages in LA has led to the highest rent-to-wage ratio in the country, and the highest rate of inflation in the country.

[Hugabear]

4. What's to stop businesses and corporations from jacking up their prices?

I know this is a RW talking point, but what is to stop businesses from simply raising prices on everything from groceries to rent?

Seems like it would work for a little while, but eventually you'd be right back where you were in the beginning. The only difference is that people would have more money, but that money wouldn't be worth as much as it used to be.