It’s Time for a Raise

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The following two articles were published last week by Robert Reich on robertreich.org and Timothy Noah of the New Republic. They make the case for increasing the minimum wage and not just to what President Obama called for in his State of the Union address, but higher.

The Minimum Wage, Guns, Healthcare, and the Meaning of a Decent Society

Raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 should be a no-brainer. Republicans say it will cause employers to shed jobs, but that’s baloney. Employers won’t outsource the jobs abroad or substitute machines for them because jobs at this low level of pay are all in the local personal service sector (retail, restaurant, hotel, and so on), where employers pass on any small wage hikes to customers as pennies more on their bills. States that have a minimum wage closer to $9 than the current federal minimum don’t have higher rates of unemployment than do states still at the federal minimum. read the rest of the story here.

Raise the Minimum Wage!
And make it higher than what Obama just proposed

President Obama said two words in the 2013 State of the Union speech that can’t be found in any of his previous four State of the Union speeches: “minimum wage.”
Here is what Obama said:

We know our economy is stronger when we reward an honest day’s work with honest wages. But today, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. Even with the tax relief we’ve put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong. That’s why, since the last time this Congress raised the minimum wage, nineteen states have chosen to bump theirs even higher. red the rest of the story here.

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