Progressive Wednesday

Doing Work for Hard-Working Families: Print

Print:

The new U.S. House of Representatives recently passed the first raise in the minimum wage in 10 years. This is fantastic, and well, well, well, well (you get the picture) overdue. But this isn't enough. If someone were to work a minimum wage job 40 hours a week for a year at this new amount, which won't fully go into effect for two years, they'd make a whopping (note the sarcasm) $15,080. This isn't nearly enough money to pay for rent, health care, transportation, food, and utilities.

There's a movement being made by progressive organizations for a so-called “living wage,– a wage that, you know, people could actually live on. We think that this framing could be better simply because the situation is graver than even word “living– can indicate.

So, we're calling for a moral wage, one that is driven by an ethical imperative. Our citizens need to have their minds changed, and this starts, in large part, through the media. Thankfully, we control the media in that we can write letters to the editor. Below you'll find a letter we've written that we think does the not-so-magical trick.

We've kept the letter to exactly 250 words, the maximum allowed at many newspapers across this land o' ours. Feel free to copy, paste, print, sign, fold, envelope, stamp and mail the sucker. In fact, we hope you will. To find the necessary information for newspaper near you, just click this sentence.

Picture c/o this fit-for-print photographer.

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Dear Editor:

I applaud the new House of Representatives and the speed with which they passed a raise in the minimum wage. Since this bare bones wage hadn't been raised in a decade, the increase was overdue.

But this increase, if it passes in the Senate, won't begin to touch the problem of poverty in the richest country in the world. According to the latest Census Bureau statistics, 37 million live in poverty. Thankfully, we needn't rely on the slow-as-sludge federal government — we can tackle this on a state level.

I believe we need to eliminate the minimum wage and institute a “moral wage,– a wage that real people can really live on. A common sense moral wage would be $12 per hour. This wouldn't need to happen overnight. As you know, we can ask our state representatives to institute this shift gradually to keep the rate moving along with natural inflation.

At this salary, the state and federal government would make significantly more in tax revenue, and this money could be used to subsidize the increase for small businesses. Consumers would have more disposable income, which would generate taxes and help businesses. Families wouldn't rely as much on Medicaid or child care assistance, further reducing the tax burden.

We have a moral imperative to do this. We owe it to our fellow Americans. Why? Because the American Dream shouldn't be to make ends meet. Because it's patriotic to care for our fellow citizens. Because that's the right thing to do.

Sincerely,

You