Minimum wage increase fails again

The democrats tried their annual ritual again,or at least one of them, trying to get legislation passed to increase the federal minimum wage from the current $5.15/hour. I think it probably should go up some, but I don't think support is there to raise it more than 50 cents to a dollar an hour if even that. Some have suggested that the minimum wage should be set to inflation, a notion I think does make sense, thus keeping it at least current in constant dollars. Its been a long time since it has been increased, and anyone who has been paid only minimum wage for the past few years has certainly seen their purchasing power seriously eroded, and they didn't have much to begin with. What else in the world do you know that has not increased with inflation (health care, gas prices, insurance, etc.)?

For some reason, some democrats led by Ted Kennedy, wanted to see the minimum wage raised by $2 an hour. A very noble gesture, but not a realistic one and one that appears to me directed more at picking a number pro-biz Republicans are sure to reject, thus making them look like the bad guys at election time. That big of an increase would be almost 40%, a pretty large increase. Most small business would probably be against that big of an increase. A partially Republican supported mesaure to increase the minimum wage by $1 an hour was defeated more roundly than the $1, likely from democrats wanting the higher increase. Think you should have gone for the buck fellas, better to go for the sure thing and at least get something done to support the workers that you claim to represent.

Here is something else to consider. I have been in the retail world for almost my entire professional career, and given the retail world's reliance on high school and college kids working part time to support it, its starting pay for entry level is probably among the lowest (except for true full time workers). But yet in those 12 or so years, I cannot even remember one instance where a store that I helped manage paid only the minimum wage. If you did that you simply got the dregs of society, the bottom of the barrel. Not that many people in this day and age will work for that amount of money and unless you are satisfied with the bottom of the barrel, you will pay a little bit more than that as your starting pay.

There are industries and companies that do pay only minimum wage, but I don't think there are really that many. Even most of the small businesses that contiually oppose any kind of minimum wage increase are probably above a small increase in the minimum wage, excpet perhaps in very rural areas or those areas with chronic high unemployment numbers. When you ran a business and pay only the minimum to your workers, you are probably going to get what you paid for and that is not too much.

Feel free to post your comments.