If the minimum wage legislation being introduced today by Senator Thomas
Harkin and Representative George Miller is enacted into law this year,
it will be five years since the working poor in American got a raise.
No other workers in American would put up with such discrimination except
those who are too desperate for a job to complain. They are often deeply in
debt, they do not make enough to support a family (yet politicians pontificate
about family values), they generally carry out manual labor, they often are
exposed to toxic chemicals and other workplace hazards white collar workers
don’t experience, they probably don’t have health insurance, many work two
jobs.
This is embarrassing for the richest nation on earth, whose corporate officials
make millions (sometime tens of millions) each year. Seventy percent of the
American people favor an increase in the minimum wage. That’s because so many
see the conditions under which some 30 million grossly underpaid Americans live and work.
We need this legislation. We need it today. We need it to increase the minimum
wage to $10.50 in 2013 just to match inflation since 1968.