Times/WaPo Watch

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Friday, July 28

Cruel Misinformation on Min. Wage Hike from NY Times

If you're a Republican lawmaker in a tough election year, beholden to corporate interests but on the wrong side of public opinion when it comes to raising the minimum wage, what do you do? It's easy: allow a vote on a bill to raise the wage from $5.15 to $7.25 over two years, but attach a couple of poison pill amendments to it such that it doesn't have a chance of actually passing. That way, you can get the benefit of friendly headlines in the New York Times like "G.O.P. Nears Vote to Increase U.S. Wage" without having to deal with the headache of actually raising the purchasing power of working families. And the best part is that readers of the Times will have no idea!

Carl Hulse's story asserts that
the momentum had clearly shifted in favor of considering an increase of at least $2 in the $5.15 an hour minimum wage, despite strong resistance from conservative Republicans and the party's allies in the business community.
The only problem with this sentence? It isn't true. Willingness to raise the minimum wage has not increased among Republicans, just a willingness to appear as though it has. Hulse's only acknowledgement of the poison pills is a watered down, tepid paragraph that Democrats
warned that Republicans might try to tie the increase to an unacceptable piece of legislation on taxes or health care as a "poison pill" to drive off Democrats and make certain the increase could not clear the Senate or become law.
With no elaboration on what those "unacceptable piece[s] of legislation" actually are, Hulse makes it sound as though Democrats are merely crying wolf for the hell of it. To learn the real details, you'll have to read the Associated Press' surprisingly clear-headed story (printed here in the Post). Not only is the G.O.P. trying to tie the minimum wage vote to an amendment cutting the inheritance tax on multi-million dollar households, they want to make it more expensive for small businesses to purchase health care for their employees (see Think Progress for more on this issue).

Fun Facts:
  • The federal minimum wage has not been raised in ten years.
  • Its purchasing power is now the lowest it's been in fifty years.
  • A full-time worker with a family earning the minimum wage is below the official poverty line.

posted by DavidB @ 7/28/2006 05:44:00 pm  

2 Comments:

  • At 7:01 pm, Blogger JustaDog said…

    A full-time worker with a family earning the minimum wage is below the official poverty line.

    A husband/wife that is making minimum wage should not even be having kids they can't afford.

    Also, I have absolutely no respect for an older adult that made the choice not to improve their marketable skills to get a better paying job. They make the choices so they have to live with them.

    There should be no minimum wage. Such jobs are for unskilled workers - for young kids or people starting out in life until they can advance. Many choose not to advance and government should keep their hands off of business.

     

  • At 10:32 am, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    It just *frosts* me that everyone calls this a "bill to raise the minimum wage". Now that the bill has been published on the web, here's the title of the bill:

    "H.R.5970

    Title: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to increase the unified credit against the estate tax to an exclusion equivalent of $5,000,000, to repeal the sunset provision for the estate and generation-skipping taxes, and to extend expiring provisions, and for other purposes. "

    and the short title is:
    "SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE, ETC.

    (a) Short Title- This Act may be cited as the `Estate Tax and Extension of Tax Relief Act of 2006'."

    It says nothing about minimum wage...that falls under the phrase "and for other purposes". This is a TAX CUT bill, not a wage bill.

    Here's the complete text that applies to raising the minimum wage:

    TITLE IV--INCREASE IN MINIMUM WAGE
    SEC. 401. MINIMUM WAGE.

    Section 6(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 206(a)(1)) is amended to read as follows:

    `(1) except as otherwise provided in this section, not less than--

    `(A) $5.15 an hour beginning September 1, 1997;

    `(B) $5.85 an hour, beginning on January 1, 2007;

    `(C) $6.55 an hour, beginning June 1, 2008; and

    `(D) $7.25 an hour, beginning June 1, 2009;'.


    That's it....what do the other 182 pages have to do with minimum wage? NOTHING!

    The bill's text is available at http://thomas.loc.gov. Search for HR 5970.

    This is NOT a vote on raising the minimum wage. This was a vote to:

    (1) REDUCE ESTATE TAXES permanently for the very, very wealthy (from 55% to 30%)
    (2) OVERRIDE STATE REGULATIONS
    (3) REDUCE BUSINESS TAXES
    ….and most remarkably…
    (4) REDUCE ACTUAL WAGES FOR MINIMUM-WAGE SERVICE JOBS (by counting “tips” as part of the “minimum wage” paid by the employer)

    Let’s be very clear that this bill was NOT a bill to raise the minimum wage. It was a bill to help those who are already wealthy and to help employers.

    The argument will be won by the side that controls the language.

    (By the way, see HR 2429 of the 109th Congress. This was a bill sponsored by 144 Representatives to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 by mid-2008. It was one page, 3 sections, and dealt only with raising the minimum wage. By contrast, HR 5970 which was voted is 183 pages of which 1 page is raising the minimum wage. Did the Democrats have a proposal? Yes, HR 2429! And its fate? buried in Committee)

     

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