Robert Reich: 8 reasons why Dems ought to use the minimum wage hike as a battering ram...

[babylonsister]

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/738987619447170

Robert Reich

Eight reasons why Democrats ought to use the minimum wage hike as a battering ram against Republicans, leading up to the 2014 elections: (1) Polls show widespread support for a minimum-wage hike across all income groups, including 58% of white working-class Americans (in latest Wall St Journal/NBC poll) and 49% of self-identified Republicans. (2) Even larger majorities believe no family with a full-time worker should live in poverty. (3) The minimum wage a half-century ago adjusted for inflation would be over $10 an hour today, if adjusted for productivity gains as well it would be $15. (4) The typical minimum wage worker today isn’t a teenager but an adult who brings home at least half of family income. (5) Because low-wage workers spend everything they earn, putting more money in their pockets would generate more spending and therefore more jobs elsewhere in the economy. (6) Past minimum-wage hikes show little or no loss of jobs because most of these workers are in person-to-person services (retail, restaurant, hotel, etc) which can’t be outsourced abroad or easily automated. (7) We’ve also seen that such pay increases are most likely to come out of profits rather than higher prices because these businesses are in intense competition for customer dollars. (8) A fight over the minimum wage would also illustrate that Republicans don’t want to help hard-working people – giving context to their similar opposition to extended unemployment benefits, food stamps, Medicaid, paid sick leave, and unions. In fact, if Democrats were smart, they’d propose a hike to $15 an hour, not just $10.10. What do you think?

[Eleanors38]

1. Problem: Democratic leadership must explain this to corp. power.

[magical thyme]

2. what do I think? I agree, especially with how it would be smart to propose a hike to $15.00/hour

Once again, we are starting negotiations from what should have been the worst-case ending point. So we will win tiny and continue to suffer, albeit a little less, instead of winning what is both necessary and just.

Hopefully our congress will at least stand very firm on the $10.10.

[DirkGently]

3. It's a good argument most people can follow. Push for $15 across the board.

Wages have been stagnant for 30 years while CEO pay has turned into a cartoon of nonsensical greed. We should be pushing for a whole panoply of worker benefits, mandatory participation in the boardroom, and wage balancing measures.

The rest of the industrialized world has all of this already, and it works. More money in the hands of more people makes the economy work, and balances political power as well.

We can't win playing defense all the time. We ought to be pushing big stuff right now. Put the oligarchy on defense for a change.

[Coyotl]

4. Move this issue forward with a $12.00 minimum wage on the ballot in many states this Fall

That's also how to GOTV like never before!