$12 Minimum Wage? Yes, Please!
Lately, there has been a lot of talk about raising the minimum wage. Companies such as Banana Republican and Gap have taken it on their own to raise the minimum wage for their employees, but how does the rest of the nation fare in the struggle for higher pay?
Within the next several days, Senator Patty Murray plans to introduce a bill to increase the minimum wage in steps, up to $12 an hour by 2020. The odds of this bill passing through the Republican-controlled Congress is very slim, but shows the Democratic Party's ambition in an ever-growing income inequality era.
The speed with which the Democrats and activists have strengthened their demands for minimum wage hikes poses some complications for both the White House and Hillary Rodham-Clinton, who in response to last week's national protests by low-wages workers wrote on Twitter: "Fast food and child care workers shouldn't have to march in streets for living wages."
Very good point, Mrs. Clinton. Is $12 an hour really too much for the growing number of minimum wage workers? Since the 1970s, workers wages have actually declined when taking inflation into consideration. Why are workers less valuable today that they were decades ago?
They're not. And, with the growing number of service workers in our country, we better raise that minimum wage to something more than 7.25 an hour or we will see even more of our population living in poverty.
-Chelsea
Source: NY Times