Americans Want a Great Big Increase in the Minimum Wage

Americans Want a Great Big Increase in the Minimum Wage

John Nichols on December 5, 2013 - 2:29 PM ET

Demonstrators rally for better wages outside a McDonald's restaurant in New York, 

as part of a national protest, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2013. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

It is time for a great big increase in the minimum wage.
Who says?
The American people.
It is not just the thousands of fast-food restaurant workers and their allies who rallied Thursday in 130 cities across the country, although the “strike against poverty wages” puts a human face on the data charting a dramatric increase in enthusiasm for this fight.
It is vital for supporters of wage increases to recognize—as everyone from Pope Francis to President Obama is talking about income inequality—that few proposals attract such broad support as the idea of raising hourly pay so that people who work forty hours a week can support their families.
A Hart Research Associates poll conducted last summer for the National Employment Law Project Action Fund found that 80 percent of Americans surveyed favor a $10.10-an-hour wage floor. And the support cuts across lines of partisanship, ideology, race and region.
Ninety-two percent of Democrats favor the increase, as do 80 percent of independents and 62 percent of Republicans.
Support from Americans who earn over $100,000 a year (79 percent) is roughly the same as from Americans who earn under $40,000 a year (83 percent). Southerners are almost as supportive (81 percent) as Northeasterners (86 percent).
This enthusiasm is not just theoretical. It is immediate. Seventy-four percent of Americans say that Congress should make it a priority to significantly increase the minimum wage.
Where they can, voters are getting ahead of Congress. In New Jersey, voters just raised the state’s minimum wage by a dollar and cleared the way for additional hikes by indexing increases to inflation.
In the Seattle area last month, voters backed a $15-an-hour minimum wage for the airport city of SeaTac, and elected a $15-an-hour advocate, Kshama Sawant to the city council. Even before Sawant’s swearing in, newly-elected Mayor Ed Murray has announced that a city will study hiking wages. And Sawant says, “If corporate resistance results in the ordinance getting watered down or not passing in 2014, then we will need to place an initiative on the 2014 ballot…. Workers simply can’t afford to wait any longer for $15 an hour.”
Something real is happening across the country. And it is about time. When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. marched on Washington for jobs and freedom fifty years ago, the federal minimum wage was $1.25 an hour. In today’s dollars, that guaranteed base wage would be $9.54 an hour.
But the federal minimum wage today is just $7.25 an hour.
So low-wage workers are more than $2 behind where they were when King declared: “We refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we’ve come to cash this check—a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”
As Congressman Keith Ellison, D-MN, said at a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, “Income inequality threatens our democracy as Jim Crow segregation did in 1963. Families are working harder than ever and are still struggling to put food on the table. A full day’s work doesn’t mean a full day’s pay.”
And that is especially true for fast-food workers.
Most Americans are aware that, especially in a weak economy, fast-food restaurant jobs are no longer “entry-level” positions. In chain restaurants across the country, most workers are adults. And substantial numbers of them are trying to support families.
But if they are paid the minimum wage, or even a bit more, they live in poverty.
“Almost one-quarter of all jobs in the United States pay wages below the poverty line for a family of four. CEO compensation, meanwhile, continues to climb. It would take a full-time, minimum-wage worker more than 930 years to earn as much as the chief executive officer of Yum! Brands, which operates Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC, made in 2012,” explains Christine Owens, the executive director of the National Employment Law Project. “Fast-food workers are in the lowest paid occupational category. The median hourly wage for front-line fast-food workers is $8.94 nationally. Many don’t even earn that. A shortage of hours further limits income. Fast-food workers work only 24 hours a week on average—at $8.94 an hour, this adds up to barely $11,000 a year.”

Please support our journalism. Get a digital subscription for just $9.50!

Organizing for better pay for fast-food and retail workers does not just benefit those workers and their families. “We can’t build a strong economy on jobs that pay so little that families can’t live on them,” notes Service Employees International Union President Mary Kay Henry. “Raising the wage floor will make the economy stronger for all of us.”
Indeed, argues California Congressman George Miller, the senior Democratic member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, “Low pay…holds back our recovery from the Great Recession.”
Miller is the House author of the Fair Minimum Wage Act (HR 1010), which would increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. The rate would then be indexed to inflation, so that pay increases come when prices rise. Additionally, Miller’s bill would increase the required cash wage for tipped workers.
Ultimately, increases must go even higher to achieve a living-wage standard. But what Miller proposes is a meaningful step in the right direction.
“Better pay will put more money into local businesses and spur economic growth,” says the California congressman. “That’s why a living wage is not about asking for a handout. Rather, it’s about valuing work. And it’s about growing the economy from the bottom up by increasing working families’ purchasing power. Americans on today’s picket lines aren’t just standing up for themselves—they are standing up for a stronger America.”
Allison Kilkenny on the fast food workers striking for living wages nationwide.

20 Things the Poor Really Do Everyday That the Rich Never Have to Worry About

Just staying alive is a struggle.

December 5, 2013  |  

 

This post first appeared on Ben Irwin's blog. 

Financial advisor and evangelical Christian Dave Ramsey probably wasn’t expecting this much pushback when he shared a piece contrasting the habits of the rich with those of the poor. In her response on CNN, Rachel Held Evans noted that Ramsey and Corley mistake correlation for causality when they suggest (without actually proving) that these habits are the cause of a person’s financial situation. (Did it never occur to them that it might be the other way around?)

Ramsey fired back, calling the pushback “immature and ignorant.” This from a guy who just made 20 sweeping assertions about 47 million poor people in the US — all based on a survey of 361 individuals.

That’s right. To come up with his 20 habits, Corley talked to just 233 wealthy people and 128 poor people. Ramsey can talk all he wants about Corley’s research passing the “common-sense smell test,” but it doesn’t pass the “research methodology 101” test.

To balance the picture a bit, I wanted to take a fact-based look at 20 things the poor do on a daily basis…

1. Search for affordable housing. 
Especially in urban areas, the waiting list for affordable housing can be a year or more. During that time, poor families either have to make do with substandard or dangerous housing, depend on the hospitality of relatives, or go homeless.
(Source: New York Times)

2. Try to make $133 worth of food last a whole month. 
That’s how much the average food stamp recipient gets each month. Imagine trying to eat well on $4.38 per day. It’s not easy, which is why many impoverished families resort to #3…
(Source: Kaiser Family Foundation)

3. Subsist on poor quality food. 
Not because they want to, but because they can’t afford high-quality, nutritious food. They’re trapped in a food system that subsidizes processed foods, making them artificially cheaper than natural food sources. So the poor are forced to eat bad food — if they’re lucky, that is…
(Sources: Washington Post; Journal of Nutrition, March 2008)

4. Skip a meal.
One in six Americans are food insecure. Which means (among other things) that they’re sometimes forced to go without eating.
(Sources: World Vision, US Department of Agriculture)

5. Work longer and harder than most of us.
While it’s popular to think people are poor because they’re lazy (which seems to be the whole point of Ramsey’s post), the poor actually work longer and harder than the rest of us. More than 80 percent of impoverished children have at least one parent who works; 60 percent have at least one parent who works full-time. Overall, the poor work longer hours than the so-called “job creators.”
(Source: Poverty and Learning, April 2008)

6. Go to bed 3 hours before their first job starts. 
Number 15 on Ramsey and Corley’s list was, “44% of [the] wealthy wake up three hours before work starts vs. 3% of [the] poor.” It may be true that most poor people don’t wake up three hours before work starts. But that could be because they’re more likely to work multiple jobs, in which case job #1 means they’re probably just getting to bed three hours before job #2 starts.
(Source: Poverty and Learning, April 2008)

7. Try to avoid getting beat up by someone they love. 
According to some estimates, half of all homeless women in America ran away to escape domestic violence.
(Source: National Coalition for the Homeless, 2009)

8. Put themselves in harm’s way, only to be kicked to the streets afterward. 
How else do you explain 67,000 63,000 homeless veterans?
(Source: US Department of Veterans Affairs, updated to reflect the most recent data)

9. Pay more than their fair share of taxes. 
Some conservative pundits and politicians like to think the poor don’t pay their fair share, that they are merely “takers.” While it’s true the poor don’t pay as much in federal income tax — usually because they don’t earn enough to qualify — they do pay sales tax, payroll tax, etc. In fact, the bottom 20% of earners pay TWICE as much in taxes (as a share of their income) as do the top 1%.
(Source: Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy, January 2013)

10. Fall further behind. 
Even when poverty is the result of poor decision-making, often it’s someone else’s choices that make the difference. If you experience poverty as a child, you are 3-4 times less likely to graduate high school. If you spend your entire childhood in poverty, you are 5 times less likely to graduate. Which means your future has been all but decided for you.
(Sources: World Vision, Children’s Defense Fund, Annie E. Casey Foundation)

11. Raise kids who will be poor. 
A child’s future earnings are closely correlated to their parents’ earnings. In other words, economic mobility — the idea that you can claw your way out of poverty if you just try hard enough is, more often than not, a myth.
(Sources: OECD, Economic Policy Institute)

12. Vote less. 
And who can blame them? I would be less inclined to vote if I didn’t have easy access to the polls and if I were subjected to draconian voter ID laws that are sold to the public as necessary to suppress nonexistent voter fraud.
(Source: The Center for Voting and Democracy)

13. When they do vote… vote pretty much the same as the rest of us. 
Following their defeat in 2012, conservatives took solace by reasoning that they’d lost to a bunch of “takers,” including the poor, who voted for Democrats because they want free handouts from big government. The reality is a bit more complex. Only a third of low-income voters identify as Democrats, about the same for all Americans, including wealthy voters.
(Sources: NPR, Pew Research Center)

14. Live with chronic pain. 
Those earning less than $12,000 a year are twice as likely to report feeling physical pain on any given day.
(Source: Kaiser Health News)

15. Live shorter lives. 
There is a 10-14 year gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor. In recent years, poor people’s life expectancy has actually declined — in America, the wealthiest nation on the planet.
(Source: Health Affairs, 2012)

16. Use drugs and alcohol pretty much the same as (or less than) everyone else. 
Despite the common picture of inner city crack houses, drug use is pretty evenly spread across income groups. And rich people actually abuse alcohol more than the poor.
(Source: Poverty and Learning, April 2008)

17. Receive less in subsidized benefits than corporations. 
The US government spends around $60 billion on public housing and rental subsidies for low-income families, compared to more than $90 billion on corporate subsidies. Oil companies alone get around $70 billion. And that’s not counting the nearly $60 billion a year in tax breaks corporations enjoy by sheltering profits offshore. Or the $700 billion bailout banks got in 2008.
(Source: Think By Numbers)

18. Get themselves off welfare as soon as possible. 
Despite the odds, the vast majority of beneficiaries leave the welfare rolls within five years. Even in the absence of official welfare-to-work programming, most welfare recipients enroll in some form of vocational training. Why? Because they’re desperate to get off welfare.
(Source: US Department of Health and Human Services)

19. Have about the same number of children as everyone else. 
No, poor people do not have loads of children just so they can stay on welfare.
(Source: US Department of Health and Human Services)

20. Accomplish one single goal: stay alive.  
Poverty in America may not be as dire as poverty in other parts of the world, but many working poor families are nonetheless preoccupied with day-to-day survival. For them, life is not something to be enjoyed so much as endured.

These are the real habits of the poor, those with whom Jesus identifies most closely.

Wal-Mart's Employee Food Drive

As the greedy underclass continues to demand a living wage, Wal-Mart generously hosts a food drive for its own employees.  (02:40)

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Video Archive

The Gospel of Selfishness in American Christianity

The Gospel of Selfishness in American Christianity

How the philosophers of selfishness came to use Christianity as their cover story.

AlterNet / By Amanda Marcotte

November 14, 2013  |  

  Anyone who has worked in the restaurant business will be happy to tell you that waiters always fight each other to avoid working Sunday lunch shift. Not because they want to sleep in, but because it’s a widespread belief that the post-church crowd is loud, demanding and unwilling to tip appropriately. In the food service industry, “Christian” is synonymous with “selfish.”
Unfair stereotype? Probably. Big groups, regardless of affiliation, tend to tip poorly. More to the point, waiters probably remember the bad Christian tippers more because the hypocrisy is so stunning. The image of a man piously preening about what a good Christian he is in church only to turn around and refuse the basic act of decency that is paying someone what you owe them perfectly symbolizes a lurking suspicion in American culture that the harder someone thumps the Bible, the more selfish and downright sadistic a person he is. And that perception—that showy piety generally goes hand in hand with very un-Christ-like behavior—is not an urban myth at all. On the contrary, it’s the daily reality of American culture and politics.
Bill Maher recently had a rant on his show that went viral addressing this very issue, bad tippers who leave sermons or notes scolding waiters instead of paying them what they’re owed. His larger point is a much more important one: It’s absolutely disgusting how the politicians who make the biggest show of how much they love Jesus would be the first in line to bash him if he returned with a message of clothing the naked and feeding the poor. The Jesus of the Bible multiplied the loaves and fishes. His loudest followers these day gripe about feeding people, claiming it creates a “culture of dependency.” They may even comb through the Bible to take quotes out of context to justify their selfishness toward the poor, as Rep. Steven Fincher did when he claimed the Bible says, “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” The fact that those jobs are unavailable didn’t give him a moment’s pause when suggesting this very un-Christ-like plan to his fellow Americans.
There are plenty of progressive Christians who genuinely try to live out Jesus’ command to love your neighbor as yourself, described in the Bible as the root of Jesus’ entire philosophy. That said, statistics bear out the sense that people who are more invested in being perceived as pious also embrace the most selfish policies. Self-identified conservatives and Republicans claim go to church regularly at twice the rate of self-identified liberals. People who go to church more than once a week are far more conservative than the rest of the population. Indeed, the research suggests how often you report being in the pews is the most reliable indicator of how you’re going to vote. (Though it may not be a reliable indicator of how often you actually go to church. In the grand tradition of showy piety, people who claim to be avid church-goers often lie about it to pollsters.)
The attempts to reconcile the correlation between displays of piety and support for selfish policies get complex on the right, with conservatives often arguing that hating your neighbor at the voting booth doesn’t count because church charities supposedly make up for it. (They don’t.) In reality, the relationship between Christian piety and support for selfish policies is fairly straightforward. It’s not that being Christian makes you conservative. It’s that being conservative makes being a loud and pious Christian extremely attractive.

Without Christianity, the underlying mean-spiritedness of conservative policies is simply easier to spot. Without religion, you’re stuck making libertarian-style arguments that sound like things cackling movie villains would say, like Ayn Rand saying civilization should reject “the morality of altruism.” Since Christianity teaches altruism and generosity, it provides excellent cover for people who want to be selfish, a sheep’s clothing made of Jesus to cover up the child-starving wolf beneath. Since Christians are “supposed” to be good people, people who really aren’t good are lining up to borrow that reputation to advance their agenda.

The fact that conservatism causes obnoxious Christian piety in American culture is most obvious when looking at some of the theological developments that have accrued since the philosophers of selfishness decided to use Christianity as their cover story. The “prosperity gospel” that has developed in recent years is a classic example.
The prosperity gospel teaches, to be blunt, that you can tell how much God favors you by how rich you are. While some on the Christian right reject this idea as a tad crude, it’s still wildly popular and its adherents, like Oral Roberts, are some of the major architects and organizers for the Christian right. It’s a perfect example of how conservative ideology leads to pious Christianity. People want to believe that the rich are better than everyone else and the poor don’t deserve squat, so they find a way to blame God for it rather than own their own greed and selfishness.
Pope Francis may be entirely sincere when he says he wants Catholic clergy to deemphasize the right-wing political pandering in favor of highlighting values that are more in line with liberalism, such as compassion and generosity to the poor, but the odds are slim of this message making inroads with church leaders in the United States. The church needs conservatives who need to believe they’re good and holy people despite their selfish beliefs. Without them, who will show up and tithe? Liberals? Most of them are sleeping in on Sundays, secure that their commitment to social justice makes them good people regardless of how visibly pious they are.
The fact of the matter is that the purposes religion serves in America are shrinking in number. Our cultural identity is increasingly shaped by pop culture, not faith or ethnic identity. Our holidays are more about shopping and having a chance to catch up with far-flung family these days, not showing devotion to a deity. Spiritual needs are often addressed through modern means like psychotherapy and self-help. People build communities through hobbies and interests more than through faith communities bound by geography, ethnicity and family.
Increasingly, the only thing religion has left to justify itself is that it provides cover for people who want to have bigoted, selfish beliefs but want to believe they are good people anyway. As these social trends continue, we can expect the alignment between public piety and grotesquely selfish political beliefs to get worse, not better.

The Next Time a Republican Says They Oppose a Hike to the Minimum Wage, Just Show Them This

November 10, 2013 By Allen Clifton  

“The minimum wage kills jobs!”  

I’m sure you’ve heard this rallying cry from many conservatives.  It’s a line that might sound like it makes sense to gullible Republican voters—except it doesn’t.

Make no mistake about it, our minimum wage and the amount of people on welfare at deeply intertwined.  Welfare, of course, being another issue Republicans endlessly attack, while opposing an increase in the minimum wage.
Let’s just think about that for a moment.  We have a minimum wage that’s so low, many people working full-time at the wage still qualify (and often require) assistance from the government to survive.  Therefore, our minimum wage being at such low levels is forcing millions of Americans to rely on help from the government just to get by.
Now enter the Republican nonsense that the minimum wage kills jobs and that we must make cuts to our welfare programs because there are too many people relying on the government instead of “taking personal responsibility for themselves.”
So basically Republicans oppose any hike in the minimum wage — a hike which would help millions of people no longer require help (or at least as much help) from the government — all while claiming that there are far too many Americans relying on help from the government.
What next?  Are they going to oppose sex education in our schools and access to contraceptives, then complain about the rate of abortions due to unplanned pregnancies?  Oh wait, never mind.
Their ignorant stance on the minimum wage just baffles me.  Sure, a hike would have a negative impact on some areas of our economy.  But here’s a news flash — nothing we ever pass will completely please everyone.  If we cured cancer, think of all the jobs that would be eliminated.  Does that mean curing cancer is a bad thing?
I just love their premise that if we eliminated the minimum wage, suddenly job growth would skyrocket.  How exactly?  By creating a bunch of jobs that pay even less than our current minimum wage?  How exactly is that going to help our economy or the American worker?  Do these conservatives really believe that by paying some lower skilled workers less, that businesses are going to pass these savings on to other workers?

Please.  They’ll do what they always do — keep it for themselves.
So how exactly does it make any sense to oppose a hike in minimum wage all while complaining about the amount of people relying on government assistance?  It’s our ridiculously low minimum wage that’s causing many Americans to rely on government assistance.
This is honestly one of the most ignorant arguments I deal with when talking to Republicans.  They literally will complain about people being on welfare while opposing a plan that would help millions of people get off welfare.
It makes absolutely no sense.
If we raised the minimum wage to a more respectable level, millions of people would make a decent enough living to where not only would they not require government assistance, they wouldn’t even qualify for it.
And don’t give me this nonsense that a raise in our minimum wage would be a “job killer.”  I’m so sick and tired of that damn phrase I could scream.  Everything is a “job killer” according to Republicans.
Tax hikes, “Obamacare,” raising our minimum wage—whenever Republicans need a “go to” talking point, they just throw out the term “job killer.”
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, demand creates jobs—period.  If there’s consumer demand for a product or service, there will be businesses fighting among themselves to provide it.  These businesses will then hire according to what demand dictates.
Sure, many businesses will initially fight against a hike in the minimum wage.  Heck, it might even temporarily cost our economy jobs.  But in the long run, demand will always win out.  These businesses might let go of a few people in a knee-jerk reaction to a raise in the minimum wage, but if they can’t keep up with demand, they’ll be forced to hire more employees.
“Oh, but then prices will go up!”  Excuse me, are prices going down?  Demand often dictates prices as well.  Nobody wants VHS tapes because it’s a dead technology, while Blu-ray and streaming services are the bigger ticket items right now.  How much are VHS tapes compared to Blu-ray or streaming?  Because demand for VHS tapes are next to nothing, prices for these items as a whole are next to nothing.  However, for Blu-ray or streaming services you’ll pay more considering demand for these products is greater.
Well, as long as their prices remain at a price point that consumers find acceptable.  This is just basic economics.  But it’s something Republicans simply seem unable to grasp.
Take a hypothetical VHS vendor.  Then let’s exempt them from “Obamacare,” give them a tax rate of zero and allow them to pay workers $1.00 an hour.  Know how much money they’re going to make?  Probably next to nothing.  Know how many jobs they’ll create?  Most likely zero. And if they did, it would be one job paying $1.00 an hour.
Consumer demand is the driving force behind our economy.  Consumer demand would also increase if we raised the minimum wage as more Americans would have more spending money.  Consumers with more money to spend create more demand, which then creates more profits for businesses which then creates more jobs.
Or we can do it the Republican way — cut taxes, cut benefits, reduce regulations and see all that savings go into the pockets of the rich executives (as they have for the last 30+ years).  Then as consumer spending falls due to the greed of these corporations trying to squeeze every last drop of revenue from every last worker, they’ll continue to eliminate jobs as consumer demand plummets due to low wages and fewer Americans having jobs.
Then, to “create jobs,” these businesses will lobby Washington for more tax cuts with the promise that this time, they’ll actually create jobs.  But what happens when their tax rates are reduced to zero?  How will they create jobs then?  That’s a question Republicans will never answer.
As this all goes on, and millions of Americans continue to rely on our government for help due to a minimum wage that’s simply too low for Americans to get by on, these same Republicans will stand there and push for cuts to those programs as well.
And that’s just how asinine many conservatives truly are.  They claim there are too many Americans overburdening our welfare system, costing taxpayers billions, yet they oppose a hike in the minimum wage which would help millions of Americans get off government programs and become fully self sufficient.
But then again, these are the people who claim their party represents “freedom” while trying to ban homosexuals from having the right to marry whomever they love.
So common sense obviously isn’t a quality most conservatives value.
Image via AP

MUST-SEE: Bill Maher BLASTS selfish Christian hypocrites who don't tip waiters

MUST-SEE: Bill Maher BLASTS selfish Christian hypocrites who don't tip waiters

by BruinKidFollow

 

On Friday night, Bill Maher delivered a great New Rule blasting conservatives who call themselves Christians, and yet show themselves to be little more than selfish assholes, notably when it comes to tipping the wait staff.

And finally, New Rule: It's OK if you don't want to feed the hungry, or heal the sick, or house the homeless.  Just don't say you're doing it for their own good.  Don't say you'd like to help people, but your hands are tied because if you did, it would cause a culture of dependency, or go against the Bible, or worst of all, rob them of their freedom... to be sick and hungry. Just admit you're selfish, and based on how little your beliefs mirror the actual teachings of Jesus, you might as well claim to worship Despicable Me.
Now I bring this up, because last week new food stamp cuts went into effect, and Congressman Steve Fincher, a Republican from Dogpatch, justified the cuts by quoting the Bible — "The one who does not work shall not eat."  And it reminded me that I keep seeing stories in the news about Christians stiffing servers in restaurants.  Like the Applebee's waitress in Missouri who got this note from a church pastor.

Written on the check, it said, "I give God 10%.  Why do you get 18?"  Prompting the question, who ordered the piping hot asshole?  (audience applause)
This is what Jesus would do?  I doubt it.  I think what Jesus would do is move the hell out of that part of Missouri.  And if you're a waiter or waitress in the Bible Belt, you may very well have seen one of these.

It's a phony $10 dollar bill that Christians sometimes leave on the table in lieu of an actual tip.  It looks like a $10, so you get the benefit of giving poor people hope, and then crushing it, but on the back it says, "Some things are better than money ... like your eternal salvation that was bought and paid for by Jesus going to the cross."

Yeah, well, Jesus didn't have to put gas in the donkey.  (audience applause)
I don't know what the snake-handlers have against the food-handlers, or when restaurant receipts became the new bully pulpit, but there was another story recently, this one from Kansas, where instead of a tip, a Christian family left their server, who they knew was gay, this note:

Thank you for your service, it was excellent.  That being said, we cannot in good conscience top you, for your homosexual lifestyle is an affront to GOD.  Queers do not share in the wealth of GOD, and you will not share in ours.

(stunned audience reaction)
Note they repeat the phrase "not share", to really drive home that they've absorbed the message of Jesus.  (audience laughter)  OK, first off, just because you're eating out, doesn't give you the right to tell your server who they should be eating out.  (wild audience laughter and applause)
And beyond that, someone needs to tell these people that not tipping a gay waiter will not make him want to put his penis in a woman.  It'll make him want to put his penis in your pasta primavera.  (wild audience laughter and applause)
Now, I am sure there are millions of Christians who try to actually follow Jesus, but you gotta admit, conservatives always seem to have a reason why they would love to give, but they just can't.  We would love to help the unemployed, but it would discourage working.  I believe in charity, just not for people who need it.  Of course we'd like it if everyone could see a doctor, we're not monsters, but if the government does it, it will destroy our way of life.  Plus, the website is glitchy, which leads to Stalinism.  Oh sure, we'd like to help people who are starving, but what if they use the strength from not starving to take drugs?
Yes, there's always a good moral Christian reason to tell everyone you meet to fuck off and die.  (audience laughter and applause)  Fair enough.  But if you're a waiter, and you ever get one of those fake $10 dollar bills, do me a favor, and next time you're in church, drop it in the collection box.  (audience laughter and applause)

Obama Gets Behind Democrats' $10.10 Minimum Wage Proposal

Obama Gets Behind Democrats' $10.10 Minimum Wage Proposal

Posted: 11/07/2013 6:16 pm EST  |  Updated: 11/07/2013 6:27 pm EST

Dave Jamieson Become a fan

dave.jamieson@huffingtonpost.com

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is throwing his support behind congressional Democrats' proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 and peg it to inflation, more than a dollar higher than the $9 proposal he made in his State of the Union address in February.
A White House official confirmed to HuffPost Thursday that the administration backs the legislation introduced earlier this year by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.). The Hill reported Thursday that Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said the White House was willing to get onboard with the measure.
"The President has long supported raising the minimum wage so hardworking Americans can have a decent wage for a day’s works to support their families and make ends meet, and he supports the Harkin/Miller bill that accomplishes this important goal," the White House official said in an email.
Harkin and Miller have said that a minimum wage hike to $9 would be insufficient. The president's support of the $10.10 proposal may help more Democrats rally around the bill as the Senate takes it up in coming weeks.
"We are very pleased President Obama endorsed a $10 an hour minimum wage bill," Aaron Albright, a spokesman for Miller, said in an email. "This action unites all Democrats and minimum wage advocates behind one proposal that addresses income inequality in a powerful way. Congress must move to raise the minimum wage now."
The White House's move was applauded by advocates for low-wage workers, who haven't seen the federal minimum wage raised since 2009, after a series of increases signed into law by President George W. Bush. In states that don't mandate a higher one, the wage floor remains $7.25 per hour.
"The White House got this ball rolling in a big way by putting this in the State of the Union," said Judy Conti, federal advocacy coordinator at the National Employment Law Project. "I think they've come to a point where they realize the economy deserves a robust minimum wage. The jobs we're creating are hourly jobs with low wages. We need to do everything we can to raise it."
The $10.10 figure in the Harkin-Miller proposal isn't arbitrary. Progressive economists like to point out that if the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation since its high in the late 1960s, it would now be above $10. Of course, it's possible the president's original $9 proposal could weaken Democrats' bargaining position with the House GOP. Republicans may seek a smaller minimum wage hike, if they agree to one at all. Republican leaders have already called it a job-killer.
During his State of the Union address, Obama argued that hiking the minimum wage would improve the lives of millions of workers and their families.
"Even with the tax relief we’ve put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong," Obama said. "Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty."
While the federal minimum wage has held steady, many states and municipalities have continued to raise or implement their own minimum wages. Just this week, New Jersey voters approved a minimum wage bump to $8.25 per hour. Last month, California lawmakers raised theirs to $10, making it the highest state minimum wage in the nation.
The congressional Democrats' proposal would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 through a series of increases, then it would be adjusted each year according to inflation. The minimum wage would also rise for restaurant servers and other tipped workers, whose employers can pay them as little as $2.13 before tips. The minimum wage for those workers would be set at 70 percent of the regular minimum wage.

Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul Hope To Tack Right-To-Work Law Onto Employment Non-Discrimination Act

Posted: 11/05/2013 11:58 am EST  |  Updated: 11/05/2013 12:54 pm EST

Dave Jamieson 

dave.jamieson@huffingtonpost.com

WASHINGTON -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have proposed an amendment to a workplace discrimination bill in the hopes of creating a national right-to-work law.
The measure -- which, as Roll Call reported Monday, would be tacked onto the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) -- would forbid contracts between companies and labor unions that require workers to pay the union for bargaining on their behalf. Prized by Republicans and business groups and loathed by unions, such laws have made it onto the books in 24 states, most recently in Michigan.
Speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday, McConnell praised Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R), who signed the state law in December after it was fast-tracked through the Republican-controlled legislature. McConnell said he and Paul were following Snyder's lead.
"The truth is, over the years, 'Big Labor' had come to care more about its own perks and power than the workers it was charged with protecting," McConnell said. "Snyder knew that. And he knew it was time to tip the scales back in favor of workers. Well, he’s not alone."
Right-to-work laws diminish union membership and weaken the clout of organized labor. Unions like to refer to such legislation as "right-to-work-for-less" laws, pointing to studies finding the laws depress wages. Right-to-work's boosters, including McConnell, portray the laws as a matter of workplace choice and a necessary counterweight to "Big Labor," even though unionized workers now make up only 6.6 percent of the private sector.
The Senate cleared a major legislative hurdle Monday night by voting to move forward with debate on ENDA, which would bar discrimination in the workplace for large businesses on the basis of sexual orientation or identity. The measure introduced by McConnell and Paul will now become part of that discussion.
It's highly unlikely, however, that the Democratic-controlled chamber would ever send right-to-work legislation to the president's desk. Unions remain a strong base of the Democratic Party, and right-to-work has proven deeply divisive in states like Michigan.
Speaking after McConnell on Tuesday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), said a national right-to-work law would lead to more inequality in the U.S. economy.
"If you look at the state of unionism today, I think the facts speak for themselves," said Durbin, referencing the country's falling union density. "Those who want to eliminate the opportunity for collective bargaining and make it more difficult for workers to stand up and speak for themselves in the workplace, I think frankly are going to condemn us to a much slower-growing economy and much more injustice when it comes to compensation."
Correction: This post originally referred to ENDA as the Employee Non-Discrimination Act. It is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
 

You're Paying A Ton To Subsidize Fast Food's Poverty Wages 

 The Huffington Post  |  Posted: 10/18/2013 2:39 pm EDT  |

 

Taxpayers spend about $7 billion per year to help pay workers who are employed by an industry that rakes in $200 billion annually.
That's because the fast food industry's notoriously low wages force more than half of fast food workers to rely on some form of government assistance like food stamps or Medicaid to get by, a study from the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recently found.
An analysis of the Berkeley/UI data from the left-leaning National Employment Law Project breaks down how much low-wages at the 10 biggest fast food chains are costing taxpayers. (Story continues below.)

Infographic by Alissa Scheller for the Huffington Post
These findings reflect the bleak reality of the low-wage recovery. Nearly 70 percent of the new jobs created since the end of the recession have been in low-wage sectors like fast food and retail and they’ve replaced largely middle-income jobs.
Representatives from the fast food industry say the sector is creating millions of jobs that pay competitive wages.
As representatives from Burger King and Dunkin’ Donuts note, many of the chains are largely run by franchisees. Often they operate on slim profit margins, making a wage boost difficult. In a statement made earlier this week, McDonald’s emphasized that the company and its franchisees provide vast numbers of entry level jobs with opportunities for advancement.
The National Restaurant Association, an industry trade group, wrote in a statement that given these factors and others, the Berkeley/UI data and NELP analysis were "misleading."
“(The studies) fail to recognize that the majority of lower-wage employees works part-time to supplement a family income,” Scott DeFife, the restaurant association’s executive vice president of policy and government affairs, wrote in an e-mailed statement.

McHelp Me! McDonald’s Pushes Welfare, Not Wages

 Mike Hall Afl-Cio Blog

McDonald’s can’t say it doesn’t know it pays its workers so little that many of them qualify for public assistance (52% of fast-food workers do) to eat, go to the doctor or heat their homes. In fact, the burger giant appears to encourage its employees to seek out government help to meet the ends that their paychecks won’t.
The people who staff the company’s “McResource” help hotline for employees are so well-versed in the needs of workers who make poverty-level wages, they seem to have information on how and where to apply for food stamps, Medicaid and other programs for the poor right at their fingertips.
Read more from Salon’s Josh Eidelson who writes about the phone call Nancy Salgado, a 10-year employee in Illinois making the state’s minimum wage of $8.25 an hour, made to the McResources line, and then take a look at this video with excerpts from that call for help.
BTW, according to National Employment Law Project, the government spends about $7 billion a year on public assistance for fast-food workers like Salgado. Those are our tax dollars at work, not fast food’s, which makes $7.4 billion in profits. As the video points out:

McDonalds doesn’t want to pay its workers more. It wants you to pay its workers more.  

Find out more at Low Pay Is Not OK.

Hey Broke People: This Statistic Will Piss You Off

 Rossalyn Warren

In Roz-dreamland, there are fields of glorious, glittery, magical money for everyone struggling to hustle on minimum wage. It's a bloody beautiful place.
But don't just let this statistic piss you off. It's a reminder that we have to keep fighting for economic fairness for those who deserve it.
 

FACT CHECK: Rep. Markwayne Mullin, “McDonalds hamburgers will cost $20!

Tea Party Cat

 
ThinkProgress reports:

 When a constituent asked Rep. Markwayne Mullin for his take on the push to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour at an Afton, Oklahoma town hall meeting last Thursday, Mullin responded with a question of his own: “You guys wanna pay $20 for a hamburger at McDonald’s?” [more here]

Claim

Rep. Markwayne Mullin says that raising the minimum wage to $10 will make McDonald’s hamburgers cost $20.

Fact Check

With the current minimum wage of $7.25, McDonalds charges an average of $4.56 for a Big Mac. Raising the minimum wage to $10 would be a 38% increase. Using math, a 38% increase in the price of the burger would be $6.29.

Verdict

So while Rep. Markwayne Mullin was off by $13.71 in his estimate, we rate his statement as Close Enough, because really $13.71 isn’t that much money when you consider that someone making minimum wage can make that in a little over 2 hours.

Today's #Teamster News 09.15.13

Today's Teamster News 09.15.13

Point, counterpoint: Teamsters, St. James debate labor contract snags The Montana Standard ...Some unionized employees have taken a strike vote against St. James Healthcare, but hope a Sept. 19 mediation session will deter such action...
Income Inequality Economic Populist ...The top 1% income earners have captured 95% of the income growth from 2009 to 2012. Folks, that's pretty much all of it...
The Stupid Trade Talk Process Trade Reform ...Yum Brands, the owner of KFC, wants cheaper chicken wings, rumps and other assorted poultry parts. Ocean Spray wants an easing of pesticide regulations. DuPont wants greater protection of trade secrets. Negotiations have barely begun for a potentially sweeping trade pact between the United States and Europe. But the lobbying is already well under way by corporations on both sides of the Atlantic...
Wynne Godley's Crucial Warnings About the Trade Deficit Still Ignored American Economic Alert ...Godley was one of the few mainstream economists who warned that huge, ballooning trade deficits like those amassed by the United States since the mid-1990s would lead to major trouble. Further, Godley’s model notably that reducing domestic budget deficits without addressing trade deficits would bring on a thoroughly unnecessary disaster on the home front – and in the rest of a world so heavily dependent on supplying American demand...
McViolation: How American Fast Food Operators Break the Law Huffington Post ...Among the most common violations is wage theft, a term used to describe practices that deprive employees of wages to which they are legally entitled. Across all industries, American workers lose an estimated $30 billion a year to wage theft...
Where's the Beef?: The First Thing Obama Can Do By Himself to Create Good Jobs Next New Deal ...A presidential executive order could directly help Lucila and the millions like her who manufacture uniforms for our military, care for our elders under Medicare, work as security guards at federally leased buildings, or are laborers on federally funded construction projects. The order would require that jobs financed by federal funds require living wages (not just minimum wage or prevailing wage in a low-wage sector), paid sick days, and prohibitions against employers fighting unionization...
Factory Rebirth Fizzles in U.S. as Work Shipped Overseas Bloomberg ...That left the factory workforce through August about 13 percent smaller than the 13.7 million when the U.S. fell into recession in December 2007. In 2000, the tally was 17 million...
Clifford Chance trainee lawyer faces sack after describing his work as 'f***ing people over for money' The Independent ...Clifford Chance, an international firm based in London and part of the ‘Magic Circle’ group of the UK’s five leading law firms, is also one of the 10 largest in the world in terms of number of lawyers and revenues...
Wall St. Exploits Ethanol Credits, and Prices Spike New York Times ...Wall Street ... set out to exploit this young market ... that is what happened this year when the price of the ethanol credits skyrocketed 20-fold in just six months...
How High 401(k) Fees Can Doom Your Retirement Plans Slate ...One of several big problems with 401(k) plans—tax subsidies for retirement savings—is that while some of the subsidy accrues to savers, some of it accrues to fee collectors who you end of paying for managing the plan...
Mississippi sitting on $872 million of Katrina funds Daily Kos ...More than half of the unspent money is tied up in a hotly debated plan to expand the state-owned Port of Gulfport, and millions more are allocated for projects that have yet to materialize. Critics also complain that some projects are far from the Katrina strike zone and don't seem to have a direct connection to recovery from the hurricane, while others have failed to take root or are not meeting promises of creating jobs...
Wisconsin Attorney General Seeks to Vitiate Open Records Law to Protect ALEC’s National Treasurer Center for Media and Democracy ...Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has taken the unprecedented step of asserting that a state legislator cannot be held accountable for refusing to disclose public records in response to a lawful open records request by the Center for Media and Democracy...

Today's #Teamster News 09.15.13 http://t.co/VdAxisl0Ld #1U #union #wiunion #katrina #ows