Reason(s) #1 to support a minimum wage hike

Here are the thoughts of committee member, Jim Boyett, about why Greensboro needs a minimum wage hike:

Wages are a moral issue.

In the richest society in human history the failure to pay just wages is not an economic issue. It is a moral issue. Tens of thousands of our neighbors in Greensboro are suffering from poverty wages. We think it is time to correct this injustice. The Federal Government’s own research shows that the minimum wage would have to be $9.36 per/hr to equal its purchasing power in 1968.

The minimum wage is a floor for wages. It is the point where society says no to lower wages. To pay a lower wage is wrong. It is immoral just as child labor is immoral. People are not machines. They must have enough to sustain themselves. We believe that business can afford to pay its workers at least as much as they paid 38 years ago. Inflation has hidden actual pay cuts for millions of hard working Americans. Two minimum wage workers today make approximately what one minimum wage worker made 38 years ago.

The trend towards paying working people less is accelerating. On October 23,2006 the News & Record reported that the real inflation adjusted median household income in Greensboro fell from $46,459 to $36,733 over the last five years. The typical Greensboro household’s income has dropped 21 % while business profits soared and America created record numbers of new Billionaires.

President Roosevelt when he established the first minimum wage law during the great depression of the 1930s said,

“ A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling workers’ out of wages or stretching workers’ hours. Goods produced under conditions that do not meet a rudimentary standard of decency should be regarded as contraband and ought not to be able to pollute the channels of interstate commerce.”

The Golden Rule, the ethics of reciprocity, is our most universal moral value. It is a fundamental moral principal in all of the world’s major religions. Its power was the driving force behind the elimination of slavery, another form of economic exploitation.

Quaker George Keith printed the first abolitionist publication in 1693. His reason to end slavery was, ”Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” Today we face another form of economic exploitation. The exploiters try to use the language of economics, science and law to justify their actions. They argue that the market should BE THE ONLY WAY to determine wages. Under their logic it is proper and just to work children 80 hours per week at 30 cents per hour sewing clothing for K-Mart, Target and Wal-Mart.

We say it is wrong to pay people a minimum wage that is not enough for them to live on. When you strip away the fancy language the only guiding principal the exploiters follow is,” Do unto others as much as you can get away with.” We must establish a higher standard than “the market”. If we don’t then one day it will be our children working 80 hours per week at 30 cents per hour.

If we stand together, act together and vote together we can increase the minimum wage for people that work for a living in Greensboro to $9.36 per hour. Citizen groups have already made it happen in other cities. The minimum wage for all workers in San Francisco is $9.14 per/hr and in Santa Fe, New Mexico it is $9.50 per/hr.

If I want decent pay for myself, I should want it for my neighbor.