The Least We Can Do
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It's time to increase the minimum wage.
This is a moral issue that has been ignored by the Republican Congress and President Bush, like so many of the critical concerns facing the nation. The minimum wage, stuck at $5.15 per hour, hasn't been touched since 1997. Since then, the cost of food, healthcare and childcare, and just about every other conceivable measure that determines the cost of living, has increased. A single parent making the minimum wage today earns $10,700 annually, more than $4,000 below the poverty line.
The minimum wage says a lot about the value we, as a society, place on work, and our government's failure to address the issue is sending the wrong signal. I find it especially puzzling when people like my opponent, Sen. Jon Kyl, stand in the way of an increase. Kyl talks about personal responsibility and accountability, but his actions give low-wage earners no other choice but to turn to government programs to meet their most basic needs.
Jon Kyl has spent 20 years in Congress voting against minimum wage hikes, voting against such measures 10 times since he's been in the Senate and five times as a House member. In 1989, he even voted against raising the minimum wage to $4.25. And yet 158,600 Arizonans would get a raise if the federal minimum wage were increased to $7.25 per year.
The oft-repeated, though, never substantiated claim is that raising the minimum wage would force businesses to trim their payrolls. Our experiences in the 1990s tell us that is not true, and as a hard scrabble businessman, I think our unusually low minimum wage is doing more harm than good to American businesses.
For many U.S. companies, the minimum wage is becoming a competitiveness issue. Most companies treat their employees fairly by paying them a decent wage and offering them health insurance. But those companies now find themselves competing with businesses that are, in effect, being subsidized by the federal government. Companies that pay their employees the minimum force those employees into Medicaid for their healthcare and food stamps to make ends meet. So the corporate good guys are at a competitive disadvantage.
That's why the push to raise the minimum wage should find friends in the business community. A higher minimum wage will help level the playing field, and it will put more money in the hands of consumers who will spend it.
If I'm elected, raising the minimum wage will be one of my top priorities. It should be raised and pegged to the rate of inflation so that it's not dependent on lawmakers who have the wrong priorities.
This is a moral issue that has been ignored by the Republican Congress and President Bush, like so many of the critical concerns facing the nation. The minimum wage, stuck at $5.15 per hour, hasn't been touched since 1997. Since then, the cost of food, healthcare and childcare, and just about every other conceivable measure that determines the cost of living, has increased. A single parent making the minimum wage today earns $10,700 annually, more than $4,000 below the poverty line.
The minimum wage says a lot about the value we, as a society, place on work, and our government's failure to address the issue is sending the wrong signal. I find it especially puzzling when people like my opponent, Sen. Jon Kyl, stand in the way of an increase. Kyl talks about personal responsibility and accountability, but his actions give low-wage earners no other choice but to turn to government programs to meet their most basic needs.
Jon Kyl has spent 20 years in Congress voting against minimum wage hikes, voting against such measures 10 times since he's been in the Senate and five times as a House member. In 1989, he even voted against raising the minimum wage to $4.25. And yet 158,600 Arizonans would get a raise if the federal minimum wage were increased to $7.25 per year.
The oft-repeated, though, never substantiated claim is that raising the minimum wage would force businesses to trim their payrolls. Our experiences in the 1990s tell us that is not true, and as a hard scrabble businessman, I think our unusually low minimum wage is doing more harm than good to American businesses.
For many U.S. companies, the minimum wage is becoming a competitiveness issue. Most companies treat their employees fairly by paying them a decent wage and offering them health insurance. But those companies now find themselves competing with businesses that are, in effect, being subsidized by the federal government. Companies that pay their employees the minimum force those employees into Medicaid for their healthcare and food stamps to make ends meet. So the corporate good guys are at a competitive disadvantage.
That's why the push to raise the minimum wage should find friends in the business community. A higher minimum wage will help level the playing field, and it will put more money in the hands of consumers who will spend it.
If I'm elected, raising the minimum wage will be one of my top priorities. It should be raised and pegged to the rate of inflation so that it's not dependent on lawmakers who have the wrong priorities.
