Personally I believe that anyone who works full time should make enough to afford the basic necessities needed in a modern civilization. Whether you are a janitor, maid, hotel, restaurant or retail worker you should not have to struggle just to survive. You should be able to pay your housing and electricity bills. You should be able to afford your heating bill and buy your groceries. You should be able to rely on a great public education system to send your children (and yourself) to. You should even have access to healthcare for you and your family. Can this be done at the current minimum wage in the country today? Clearly when you look at the reality you will come to know that $5.15 is not enough. Even after the hard work in 2004 to raise the minimum wage in New York to a little over seven dollars an hour which I applaud; that is still not enough for someone to survive on. Of course as a government, how can you expect someone making below poverty level wages to pay taxes of any kind (besides sales tax) and contribute to the commons?

Raising the minimum wage a few dollars will not solve the problem. What is needed is a living wage. What is the amount considered to be a living wage? Most people will say the living wage should be equal to or more than the poverty line for a family of four. There is push back to this idea from the business community because they feel that the cost would be too high. They are the ones who have fought tooth and nail to keep the federal minimum wage where it is now. Yet, there is a growing number of local municipalities which are passing living wage ordinances. As of February of 2006 there were one-hundred and twenty who had done so. The costs of a living wage are usually absorbed through reduced profits to a business, but with the way corporate profits have skyrocketed, it’s only fair that they would have to give back something to the community. Besides, when you look at the millions and even billions of dollars doled out in corporate welfare, and the gigantic bonuses going to CEO’s, I can hardly take their side. There is also the fact that corporations would have to spend less on training and recruitment if they paid more to keep the employees they have. There would be less turnover. Many large corporations also try to hide behind the excuse that small businesses would suffer the most from a living wage or minimum wage increase. But the percentage of workers who would benefit from the increase of a living wage is small to begin with. The percentage is less than one percent of the local workforce.

When figuring out living wage legislation, some of the cost may also be passed onto the taxpayers as well. But as the Economic Policy Institute shows (http://www.epinet.org/), with the increase in wages there is usually a decrease in the number of people needing social services which taxpayers also pay for. In the end it appears that there is more benefit to having a rising tide that lifts all boats. While it is true that most corporations pay more than the minimum wage; there are many people still living in poverty. It is an oxymoron to say that someone is employed but still dependent on government programs for help.

With the Democrats taking back congress this past election cycle it seems that the president will go along with a federal minimum wage increase of some sort. We cannot allow ourselves to be fooled that the war let alone even a battle has been won. While it is good to raise the federal minimum wage; we will be having this same fight again just as we fought to raise it to $5.15 in the past. One way to continue to show support for the idea of a living wage is to continue to get local governments to pass these ordinances. Then eventually we could try for something statewide here in New York. If that were to happen we would be a model state for the entire country. Change is slow but if you don’t begin the process then change will never happen.