President Obama's call to increase the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour was one of the more significant proposals he laid out in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. But $9 an hour is still a far cry from what workers really deserve, a 2012 study finds.

The minimum wage should have reached $21.72 an hour in 2012 if it kept up with increases in worker productivity, according to a March study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. While advancements in technology have increased the amount of goods and services that can be produced in a set amount of time, wages have remained relatively flat, the study points out.

Even if the minimum wage kept up with inflation since it peaked in real value in the late 1960s, low-wage workers should be earning a minimum of $10.52 an hour, according to the study.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/13/minimum-wage-productivity_n_2680639.html

Minimum wage has always been slave wages. It is not a living wage and it never will be.

When I first started working minimum wage was .75 an hour. Or maybe $1.25. I know I only made .75 an hour plus some tips.

wow.

I think it's more of a slave wage now than it would have been back then though......because back then prices were lower than they are now so that .75 would have taken you further than our current min wage would now. Least in theory that's what I'd think, but could be wrong.

9 per hour is a good start, it gives a person 18720 per year, after taxes maybe 15000 per year

that gives one(single)person , about 300 per week

thats enough for a cheap studio in a bad neighborhood, with utilities, phone, groceries, internet, maybe a junker car and cheap gas and insurance

,,what sucks is so many non single people have invested in educations and still find themself with these wages, working full time hours, at the beck and call of their bosses,,,who so often couldnt give two cents about them as people,,,,,,,

Unions going broke,hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?


http://laborpains.org/2013/02/14/new-research-labor-unions-support-minimum-wage-hikes-because-their-contracts-peg-salaries-to-minimum-wage-levels/

http://www.unionfacts.com/article/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Union_Minimum_Wage_report.pdf

New Research: Labor Unions Support Minimum Wage Hikes Because Their Contracts Peg Salaries to Minimum Wage Levels

Research from the Center for Union Facts Uncovers Union Agenda Behind President Obama’s Minimum Wage Hike Proposal

Today the Center for Union Facts released new research detailing how many collective bargaining agreements link union salaries and wage rates to the federal minimum wage. This research comes two days after President Obama proposed raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9—a move which labor unions broadly praised.

The research brief can be accessed here.

“This research shows that labor unions stand to gain from minimum wage increases, even though their members don’t make the minimum wage,” said Richard Berman, Executive Director of the Center for Union Facts. “Some union contracts set starting union wages as much as fifteen percent higher than the federal minimum wage.

“Union officials have been anything but altruistic in their support for minimum wage hikes over the years,” Berman concluded. “This also calls into question whether some politicians who support minimum wage hikes do so out of support for unions—the same unions that are some of the nation’s biggest campaign contributors.”


Seems you Guys have a serious Dog in the Race!

Barry's Election-Pay-Off!

BTW,WHAT would the Level of your Wage be then?
ASTRONOMICAL?

I have never seen union wages linked to the min. wage.. It's the other way around for most jobs.. Your non union wage is connected to the union wages and you get it for free. we talk about democracy but the elite has got the average person to believe unions are bad. Yes they are bad for the rich. If unions could be outlawed then they will not outsource to Mexico no more. Mexican wages will be right here.

Raising the Min would be cool in that it might put the low end wage earner in the bracket where they would be forced to BUY oBummercare.

But then, those who CHOOSE not to work won't do Min wage at whatever level it's at.

Once again your logic is seriously flawed. Unions are the only ones who have come close to keeping up with inflation so it may appear some pay is "astronomical" compared to those who have not.

The real issue is we are working for less in a far more productive work place. Automation has replaced many jobs helping the 1% increase their worth many times yet the workers see no pay increase.

What really ails this economy are average workers lack of disposable income.

As a business owner, My rate of pay is based on the preformance of the worker. THAT is how the rate should be set. When I worked for wages, IF I FELT I was worth more than I was getting, I made my case to the man that hired me. I either got more because I WAS WORTH IT, or a goal was set for me to attain. THEN I MADE MY DECISION of staying or not. I alwys treated my people fair, as I knew I needed them, as much as they needed me.

FREE ENTERPRISE & worker INTEGRITY. HOW IT WORKS.

Maybe in the America you and I grew up in and good for you if that was your practice but today's america is nothing like that.

I know guys who got axed because they had to much vacation time and made to much.

One of our new hires described how they layed everyone off (non union) were he worked and only returned guys with two weeks or less vacation and had a smaller rate of pay due to a short time on the job.

I never offered more than 2 weeks vacation. My business couldn't afford long unworked pay. I went years between vacations, personally. Always treated as I EXPECTED to be treated.

well,maybe some day it will dawn on you that the Unions belong to the same 1% as the Crony-Bankers,Crony-Capitalists,and Governments!

and where is your vaunted Inflation coming from,if not from Inflated Wages,and the Cronyism of your Union-Leader-Fatcats?
You getting ripped off by your Union-Leadership daily,unless you belong to that Leadership!

Barry paying off Election-Debts to the Unions!

My hope is we find solutions to raise all boats, but highly unlikely. Primary ethics like a lack of mutual respect are at the root of American poverty. The small business owners I know will only be hurt, like my local tobacconist( yes, it's still legal). Square up with greed on the high end and apathy on the low and we might get somewhere. They say you can't legislate morality, but you can teach it, practice it, and hold everyone accountable. Love thy neighbor or at least be humble, just, and a decent role-model.

21.72/hr for flipping burgers? My McDouble would cost $15 then. And my order would probably still be wrong.

Sounds like it was not a very good job.

Please tell me about how YOU risked everything you owned & let the employees tell you how to run it?

Nine Bucks an Hour? A Call for a Living Wage at $10.50 or More


ow could Barack Obama say, in his State of the Union speech, “let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour”?

Back in 2008, Obama campaigned to have a $9.50 per hour minimum wage by 2011. Now he’s settling for $9.00 by 2015! Going backward into the future is the price that poverty groups and labor unions are paying by giving Mr. Obama a free ride last year on this moral imperative. How can leaders of poverty groups and unions accept this back-of-the-hand response to the plight of thirty million workers who make less today than what workers made 45 years ago in 1968, inflation adjusted?

But, of course, the poverty groups and labor unions chose not to mobilize some of the thirty million workers who grow our food, serve, clean up and fix things for us to push for a meaningful increase in the minimum wage before Election Day.

It gets worse. The Obama White House demanded “message discipline” by all Democratic candidates. That meant if Obama wasn’t talking about raising the minimum wage to catch up with 1968, none of the other federal candidates for Congress should embarrass the President by speaking out, including Elizabeth Warren, of all people, who was running for the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts.

Catching up with a 1968 federal minimum wage of $10.50, inflation adjusted, should be a winnable goal this year. Once the media starts regularly reporting on the human consequences of unlivable wages, and once the entry of more and more of the thirty million workers to marches, rallies and town meetings grows, neither the Republicans nor the Blue Dog Democrats will be able to stop this drive.

It didn’t matter that the U.S. had the lowest minimum wage of any major western country (Australia is over $15, France over $11, and the province of Ontario in Canada is $10.25 – all of these countries also have health insurance for all).

It didn’t matter that several cities and 19 states plus the District of Columbia have higher minimums, though the highest – Washington state – reaches only to $9.19.

It didn’t matter that two-thirds of low-wage workers in our country work for large corporations such as Walmart and McDonald’s, whose top CEOs make an average of $10 million a year plus benefits. Nor did it matter that these corporations that operate in Western Europe, like Walmart, are required to pay workers there much more than they are paying Americans in the United States where these companies got their start.

Haven’t you noticed how few workers there are in the “big box” chain stores compared to years ago? Well, one Walmart worker today does the work of two Walmart workers in 1968. That is called a doubling of worker productivity. Yet, many of today’s Walmart workers, earning less than $10.50 an hour, and are making significantly less than their counterparts made in 1968.

Nobel-Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, told me that minimum wage policy relates intimately to child poverty. Single moms with children on a shrinking real minimum wage “translates to child poverty” and is “creating another generation” of impoverished people.

The arguments for a higher minimum wage, at least to reach the level of 1968, are moral, political and economic. James Downie writing in The Washington Post provided five reasons to raise the minimum wage: “1) it will help the economy; 2) it reduces poverty and inequality; 3) it reduces the ‘wage gap’ for women and minorities; 4) indexing the minimum wage is, well, common sense; and 5) it’s consistent with American values.”

Downie gives historical perspective on just how far our economic expectations have slid when he quotes Theodore Roosevelt at the 1912 Progressive Party convention:

“We stand for a living wage…enough to secure the elements of a normal standard of living – a standard high enough to make morality possible, to provide for education and recreation, to care for immature members of the family, to maintain the family during periods of sickness, and to permit a reasonable saving for our old age.”

In the ensuing 100 years, worker productivity has increased about twentyfold. Why then are not most workers sharing in the economic benefits of this productivity? With other worker advocates, we chose to demonstrate on Feb. 12, 2013 before the headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce whose business coalition opposes increases in the minimum wage while its members report record profits and boss pay. And before the headquarters of the large labor federation – the AFL-CIO – we urged well-paid union leaders to devote more of their power and resources on Congress and the White House to lift up the minimum wage for those they like to call their “brothers and sisters,” from the ranks of the working poor.

The last time – 2007 – a higher minimum wage law was passed under the prodding of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, nearly 1,000 business owners and executives, including Costco CEO Jim Sinegal, the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce CEO Margot Dorfman (two thirds of low-income workers are women), and small business owners from all 50 states signed a “Business for a Fair Minimum Wage” statement.

It read: “[H]igher wages benefit business by increasing consumer purchasing power, reducing costly employee turnover, raising productivity, and improving product quality, customer satisfaction and company reputation.”

Listen to those words, Walmart! You badly need to improve your reputation, given your recent major missteps.

Catching up with a 1968 federal minimum wage of $10.50, inflation adjusted, should be a winnable goal this year. Once the media starts regularly reporting on the human consequences of unlivable wages, and once the entry of more and more of the thirty million workers to marches, rallies and town meetings grows, neither the Republicans nor the Blue Dog Democrats will be able to stop this drive. Congressional districts all have many such workers in their districts and polls show 70 percent popular support for raising the minimum wage. That includes millions of workers who call themselves conservatives.

The April Congressional recess – the first two weeks of the month – will be the first opportunity to show up where it counts – at the town meetings held by senators and representatives back home. Filling those seats usually requires two to three hundred local voters. If workers rally, by the time the lawmakers go back to Congress, they’ll have a strong wind to their back to face down the lobbies for greed and power, who have money, but don’t have votes.



Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His latest book is The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future. Other recent books include, The Seventeen Traditions: Lessons from an American Childhood, Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win, and "Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us" (a novel).
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/02/16-1

Well personally I would never work for a company that would only give me two weeks vacation no matter how many years I worked for them, If I was that desperate though I would be seeking better employment and view it as a temporary set back and I would be less motivated to give all I had to such an employer.