An unlivable minimum

Check out this interesting article by Derrick Jackson on the national minimum wage. Here is a section which illustrates the cost of food in comparison to the minimum wage:

Even the most cursory comparisons betray how outrageous the minimum wage is. One hour of $5.85 minimum-wage work gets you just two gallons of gasoline. The fact that the affluent can mindlessly drop $5.85 for a lunch-time sandwich or a latte and muffin at Starbucks makes us forget that the working poor have to work (based on the lowest prices for these items at my neighborhood Shaw’s supermarket) approximately:

Half an hour for a 5-pound bag of white rice.

More than half an hour to afford a pound of butter.

More than half an hour for a loaf of white bread and a 16-ounce jar of peanut butter at $1.88.

More than half an hour for a 1.81-pound family-pack of pork chops.

45 minutes for a gallon of milk.

55 minutes for 1.52 pounds of beef chuck on sale.

A full hour to afford a nearly 5-pound family-pack of chicken drumsticks or thighs.

A full hour to afford a pound of fresh salmon.

A full hour to throw a 1-pound bag of frozen vegetables, a pound of fresh tomatoes, and a bag of carrots into the cart.

Council members speak out on the minimum wage ordinance

(Due to my lack of time and Jordan Green's excellent, relevant reporting, I'm afraid this blog has turned into a digest of Green's articles, but the subject matter continues to be relevant and rich. Thanks, Jordan.)

Check out the last in Yes! Weekly's Jordan Green's installments in his series on the Greensboro City Council's Human Relations decisions. He ends by sharing thoughts from Mayor Holliday and council members Yvonne Johnson and Sandra Anderson Groat. (Get to the end of the article for this section, but read the first part, too, because it is informative as well.)

Holliday, on the proposed increase in the minimum wage:

"That's too much of an emotional issue without studying it, and figuring out how it would affect local businesses, whether businesses would be laying people off," he said. "On the upside, that's that much more social income in people's pockets."

I've got at least two thoughts on these comments. First, there are studies out there about how the wage increase would affect local businesses (just check out the hundreds of links on this site). If Holliday finds them inconclusive, then perhaps he could talk with some of the local universities about conducting further research. Second, I'm not sure what Holliday means by "social income." Does anyone else understand that term?


Yvonne Johnson:

"I believe folk ought to have a livable wage," she said. "It does better for everybody. I certainly think people would appreciate making enough money so if they were in crisis they would know how to handle it. You would have less tension and probably a more productive workforce."

My sense is that Johnson is more accurate when she implies that minimum wage workers would use their improved wages for dealing with crises than is Holliday when he suggests that these increased wages would be "social income."

Our committee members have been talking with all of the council members and council hopefuls and we will publish their comments on the minimum wage effort soon.

I'll just predict now that it is going to be an interesting fall.

Yes! Weekly: Profile of Zaytoon Cafe

Yes! Weekly's Jordan Green has again produced a great piece on how the minimum wage hike might impact small businesses. This time he profiled Masoud Arwatani, owner of Zaytoon Cafe. Here is a bit of what you'll find in the entire profile:

The Awartanis support a proposed citywide minimum wage increase to $9.36 per hour.

"I would have to raise wages by a small percentage, so it's not going to hit me hard," Masoud Awartani says. "Zaytoon will not be hurting greatly if we were to pay $9.36."

He says the increase from the current statewide minimum wage of $6.15 is justified by inflation.

"From my economic background, if you increase the income of the middle class, they will tend to spend the extra money on luxuries, and there might be some chance for some families to save a little bit," Masoud Awartani says. "This [additional pay] that is going to add to their income is going to go back to the market and the city. It's more prosperity to the local economy."

He waves off concerns that the increase would drive corporate stores outside the city limits or shut down small, independently owned businesses.

"I know this increase in the minimum wage, it's around thirty percent," Masoud Awartani says. "It might have a certain effect on chain stores with the profit margins that they set. In my opinion it should not be a drastic hit.

"For a small business," he continues, "it should not be bad enough for them to shut down. They only have three or four employees, so their labor costs are not that great. If a business is to live or die on a three-to-four hundred dollar difference, that's a shaky business. That's a business that's already dying.

"It will affect the large business more, but they can absorb the costs. Food prices are much lower for a large business. They know how to negotiate prices down and buy in bulk."

Yes! Weekly: Profiles in profit and loss: The Press Wine Cafe

Yes! Weekly's Jordan Green continues his "Profiles in Profit and Loss" series this week with a profile of the Press Wine Cafe's co-owner, Mike Hamuka. Although Hamuka is a friend of mine (and I'm a pretty loyal customer of The Press), we disagree on issues related to the minimum wage hike, as you will see when you read the article.

I'm glad the profile was written, however, because it gives me an opportunity to clarify a couple of apparently misunderstood pieces in the minimum wage ordinance.

First, Hamuka suggests that, if the minimum wage ordinance is passed, tipped employees would get paid the full $9.36/hour on top of their tips. This is not the case. The minimum wage ordinance, as written, simply replaces $9.36 as the minimum wage for Greensboro, which means that any current law pinned to the minimum wage would stay the same, just with a different minimum. I think the current law states that tipped employees must be paid a base of $3.15/hour and, if tips do not equal the state's minimum wage of $6.15, then employers must make up the difference. If the minimum wage ordinance here passes, then tipped employees will still have the same base pay that the state requires, but if tips do not make up the difference between $3.15 and $9.36, then employers will have to make up that difference, just like they already do with the lower $6.15 minimum. If my experience on Thursday nights at the Press are any indication of their business, I don't think this will be a problem for Hamuka or the other owners.

Second, Hamuka suggests at the end of the article that the wage increase be slowly phased in. With nine employees, though, Hamuka's business would qualify as a small business in the minimum wage ordinance, which means that the wage hike would, indeed, be phased in for him. Section 3.2 of the ordinance reads:

The minimum wage will be phased in for small business to allow them more time to adjust. A small business is defined as a business or nonprofit organization that has 10 or fewer workers during a normal work- week at all business locations. Small business will pay a minimum wage of $7.15 per hour for one year and then will increase their minimum to equal the normal minimum wage rate.

Thanks to Green for writing these profiles and thanks to Hamuka for being willing to talk about it on the record.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: "The fierce urgency of now"

On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assasination, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a talk to a large gathering of Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam at Riverside Church in New York City. I think its relevance to the minimum wage campaign in Greensboro is apparent. Here is a segment of the talk:

Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men (sic) do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world… we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty… We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak…A few years ago…it seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty programs. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube…I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government…we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered…True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes necessary to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring…A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death…We are now faced with the fact , my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now… We must move past indecision to action.

Yes! Weekly: "A rare managerial mandate: Raise wages"

In this (almost last) week's edition, Yes! Weekly's Jordan Green profiles Joel Landau, general manager of Deep Roots Market and at-large City Council member hopeful, in particular questioning him about how the minimum wage hike might impact his business. One highlight of the piece:

"I support a higher local minimum wage for Greensboro," [Landau] says. "I think it would improve overall quality of life. When you give lower-income people more money they spend it. They have necessities to buy.

"In studies that I've seen states that have minimum wages higher than the national average have shown less unemployment and better economies," he continues. "There's some question about which comes first. But there is that correlation."

July 4th Petition Drive

A message from Marilyn Baird, co-chair of the Greensboro Minimum Wage Committee:

On Wednesday, July 4th we're planning a major minimum wage petition drive at the Fun Fourth Celebration in downtown Greensboro. Your help is needed. We're close to meeting our goal and we can do it with your help.

If you can volunteer any time to help us get registered voters to sign the minimum wage petition, please meet us at the Faith Community Church, 417 Arlington Street at 11:00am. We will have a brief training session. We'll then go out intodowntown Greensboro to ask the thousands of people there to sign the petition. This is a great opportunity to connect with thousands of registered voters. If you can't be there at 11:00 and you've some time to volunteer, come to the minimum wage table that will be located on the government plaza, Greene Street side.

Any questions please call me at 456-1309. This is the number you can also reach me on if you've problems connecting to the Minimum Wage Committee.

Good day for workers around the US, the world

Today is a good one for hundreds of thousands of workers around the US and millions of workers around the world.

As of July, minimum wage hikes have taken place in Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Nevada. Tipped employees are getting a raise in Vermont starting today. Workers in South Dakota and Nebraska are looking forward to higher wages on July 24th. Kentucky workers were ahead of the curve by getting their increased wages on June 26th. Employees for St. Vincent's Health Care in Florida are getting a minimum wage hike today as well.

Ireland , South Africa, Guam, and Turkey are getting raises today, too.