It is very simple.
The Federal Minimum Wage is not sufficient to feed one's
self or much less a family.
What's the point in mandating a 40-hour week if you
have to have two jobs?
The minumum wage has not risen more than a few pennies
in years.
The cost of everything has in most cases substantially increased.
Simple
math dictates more people are sinking deeper into poverty.
No one is asking for
handouts.
They are asking for a fair amount of money for a fair amount of work.
There are those who erroneously assert it will cripple the economy and productivity.
As
though Home Depot raises minimum wage and Lowes does not?
And therefore Lowes
has a competetive advantage?
Do they think we are stupid (of course they do)?
Everyone
pays the same wage and 2 x 4's cost the same at both places.
Did it occur to them
that gratitude for a living wage might enhance productivity?
It might be a win-win
for all.
The Banks in the Caymans might have unused space in their vaults for
all the pirated money that no longer comes.
They'll survive.
The current Federal Minimum Wage is $7.25 per hour.
When this author commenced
work, it was seventy-five cents per hour (about a tenth).
Then it increased to
$1.25 per hour. We thought we'd died and gone to heaven.
Of course the powers-that-be
want to keep the minimum wage at $7.25.
In fact, they would like everyone to work
for $7.25. (Or back to $1.25 would be even more preferable.)
Teachers already
do. Who could have imagined that?
There has been this clarion call to raise it
to $15 per hour.
There has been an equally loud dissonant bleating that this will
shock the system, kill jobs, lead to automation and various other threats.
How
about if all the children drop their sticks, stop the yelling and go to their seats?
How
about a compromise?
THEN raise it a nickel per month- every month.
And, yes, there exist sufficiently
powerful computers to handle the calculations anew each month (some people call it
a pencil).
Talk about a happy electorate!
If it is a bi-partisan effort, people
might start liking politicians again (don't hold your breath).
By the end of the
first year, the Federal Minimum Wage will be $10.60.
At the end of five years
it will be $13.00 per hour.
At the end of ten years it will be $16.00 per hour.
At
the end of fifteen years it will be $19.00 per hour.
That's 2032. Has anyone even
thought or worried that far ahead? Why do so now?
In 1955 a bottle of Coke from
a machine was a nickel (no cans yet). Looked like a chest freezer.
Forty years
later by 1995, there were the first instances of vending machines offering a Coke
for $1.
That's an increase by a multiplier of twenty times .
In forty years
(2035), if the same multiplier holds, will a can of Coke cost $20?
(That'd slow
down obesity and diabetes like a $7 pack of cigarettes did lung cancer.)
Point
is, after approximately one election cycle, the Federal Minimum Wage will have risen
to $13.00.
That's not $15, but thank goodness it's not $7.25.
And after approximately
two election cycles, it will be a buck above the desired $15.
If the economy absorbs
this comfortably and easily and employers can plan for it, it is doable.
Inflation
fears?
That's initially a half percent per month or six percent per year increase.
By
the time the wage is $16, it is a bit over a three percent increase per annum.
That
sounds like a cost-of-living adjustment at that point.
Are we so cruel and greedy
we can't allow this?
Let's do it!
You heard it here first.