Minimax
A letter to the editor in Mondays Washington Post caught my eye. The writer had seen a column by Harold Meyerson
Minimum Wage, Maximum Gall the week before and felt the need to be his critic "Blinded by partisain hatred and fixated by the liberal talisman of increases in the minimum wage." and further added the estate tax was a 'red herring.' Well it might have been if the Democrats had put it in the bill, but it was written in by the Republicans who were quite sincere about it. I had read Meyerson's column at the time and it seemed fairly restrained. Aside from a tone of exasperation - his phrase Dickensian grotesques - describing the republican party engineering a bill that combines raising the minimum wage with repealing the estates tax comes to mind here. But this was in direct reaction to what he relates from congress in a further passage:
"Their tone was best captured by Tennessee Rep. Zach Wamp, a Mayberry Machiavelli if ever there was one, who could not restrain himself from telling House Democrats, "You have seen us really outfox you on this issue tonight."" Meyerson probably would have read David Broder's column from the week before
Simmering Rage Within the GOP also. In decision theory the phrase minimax exists for the strategy of minimizing the maximum possible loss. The current congress is nothing if not strategic. In the end the Senate declines to vote for combined minimum wage estate tax bill
GOP Bid On Wages, Estate Tax Is Blocked though some seem amused by the faux role reversals
An Estate Tax Twist Reverses Party Roles On Minimum Wage. Having dodged any progress on the issue, they all left on a well deserved vacation. I caught up on my email newsletters from the UCC's Just Peace Action Center. Last weeks topic was wage justice they point you off to the Let Justice roll site
Let Justice Roll - Raise the State and Federal Minimum Wage. There is a small table just off the top of the page illustrating the eroding purchasing power of the minimum wage that tells you most of what you need to know here. They have a slogan too (of course they do): Our bottom line is this: A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it. I image there is countering data that will show that a significantly smaller percentage of the american work force is earning at or near the minimum wage - particularly the primary wage earner in a household. That what is therefore being argued about is the wage level of second jobs and the idea of classes of jobs which are second-income jobs. I incline to a rejection of distinction between 'primary' and 'secondary' household income. This web site provides some reasons for thinking that: Contrary to stereotype, the typical worker paid minimum wage is an adult, not a teenager living with parents. Most have high school degrees or more."...
By 2005, family health coverage cost $10,880, and a full-time minimum wage was just$10,712.4 ...
a $5.15 minimum wage $10,712 a yearójust doesnít add up. A single parent with one child would need to work more than two full-time minimum wage jobs to make ends meet. It takes more than three jobs at minimum wage to support a family of four.
"A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future_(pdf).
An inadequate minimum wage depresses the entire low end of the wage scale for the sake of subjective notions about what type of people are/ought to be doing certain types of work and the needs they have. The ALA is publishing a survey on the salaries of library technical support staff
ALA press release : Salary Survey Non-MLS Positions. This is what I do and it is a field often considered the domain of the "second salary" and therefore not critically compensated. I took an upper level undergraduate class in labor relations, at one point. We spent at least a month on the economic logic and underpinnings of wage structures. The market, bargaining, state compensation boards. It was all a gruesomely rational system, up to a point and then another system seemed to kick in, the priviledged system. The juncture is hinged softly by subtly changing attitudes marked by phrases like "yes but to get the best people into this important job we need to...It's just the market you understand... But the market is not a machine, not a single machine at least. It is a set of attitudes and institutions owned by it's stake holders. They rate their own lives, education, experience, and labor highly. Wage Logic. Increasing it is difficult to get a real sense on what the top quintile of earners actually makes. Working for the state mine is public information, so is the Deans (and the campus newspaper sees fit to publish it every year). But many catagories don't have to be revealed to anyone (both my brothers-in-law). Beyond this even in public traded companies with reports and shareholders executive disclosure is a fairytale of a national legion of bonus babies
3 Charged As Probe Into Options Widens : FBI Pursuing Cases of Illegal Stock Profits.
There is a shifting apart of the highest and lower ends of the American earnings scale that is nearly logarithmic. If it continues another generation - if the upper half gain the right to transmit their wealth intact it will leave two different American populations. Slate ran an article last month on how increased gas prices were affecting the motorboat crowd. The industry people the writer talked to admitted sales to the bulk of the people they sold to, the upper middle class, were down. But sales of the big boats - those hadn't been affected at all. As I watched all the rich and acquired Lebannese flee their country for France and Italy a few weeks ago It struck me that this is America's future. In the struggles of the unfolding century there will be only the working classes left to sort it out while our lawmakers work to further insulate the wealthy from it all.
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