by Diane Quinn

Created on: January 29, 2008

This question is really about whether or not America cares about a group of people who are best described as "the working poor". At the current minimum wage hourly rate, no one person can support themselves in this country, let alone someone married or a single woman with children.

This question is not about helping people who do not want to work. It is about helping people who are not educated enough or skilled enough to work in jobs that pay higher wages. But, they DO want to work!

Not everyone has made the best choices in life. Not everyone has had advantages of education. Not everyone was raised in an environment where their potential was actually nurtured and helped to achieve its full potential. These people now find themselves at the lowest end of our economic spectrum. Every society has service related jobs that must be filled. If there are people willing to work in these less than attractive jobs, why is it unfair to ask that they be paid a fair, living wage?

For obvious reasons, the vast majority of people against raising the minimum wage are business owners. It is their pockets that will be a little lighter. I have empathy for our hardworking, small business owners. Most of them work long hours maintaining a high profile in their business which is why they are successful. They work extremely hard, and have made many sacrifices, and they do not wish to share any more of their profits while continuing to feel the weight of their tax burden.

Many feel that their business will no longer be successful if forced to pay higher wages. This is the same argument used every time the minimum wage has gone up, and it has been a hollow complaint in the past. The solution has been that they raise their prices, and in the end, the cost is spread evenly to consumers or customers, with little impact on their business profit margin. Wouldn't it be nice to have prices go up for a good reason, like helping our working poor not be quite so "poor" anymore?

Unfortunately, greed at the higher levels of wage earners, certainly at the corporate level, appears to be reinventing a class system in our country that was long ago justly eradicated. Smothering their hope for a better life is NOT a good thing for America.

Every country and culture is judged on the way they treat the weakest links in their society. Right now, America does not get very good marks. Our corporate fantasy world, the one that promotes the rich-getting-richer, and includes big bonus stock options for CEO's, whether or not they actually perform their job well, has tipped the scales of wage sanity in our country to breaking. THIS is not a good thing for America.

America desperately needs a wage adjustment at many levels, but raising the minimum wage is a good place to start.

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