If you really want to see the effect of minimum wage first-hand, come take a look at “7 DAYS @ MINIMUM WAGE”, a video blog of hardworking Americans struggling to make ends meet on poverty wages, sponsored by ACORN and AFL-CIO and hosted by Roseanne Barr. We originally expected to end the project after the initial week, but due to its success it’s been been extended through Election Day, November 7.? ?The interviews are pretty stark and honest, and they’ve been viewed by more than 30,000 people since the project began on October 23 (they can be seen at http://www.sevendaysatminimumwage.org or on YouTube under the user name, “7daysatminimumwage”.? ?ACORN and AFL-CIO launched the blog as a way to get contemporary audiences to join in the national debate over fair wages.  We hoped, naively or not, that Paul and Susan, Jessica, Jeffrey, and the other poverty-wage workers who agreed to tell their stories to America, would become Internet “celebrities” in the fight for social justice.  That’s actually starting to happen.  A few days ago, part one of Jessica’s harrowing interview, in which she describes raising four kids while getting a degree and begging her employer for full-time hours and benefits, became YouTube’s top video in the News & Blogs category (the real heartbreak is in part two, though, if you’re brave enough to watch it).? ?We’ve also had more than 60 bloggers across the country (like you) take up the cause and write about or link to the 7 DAYS blog, gotten coverage from Air America, National Public Radio, and, with Roseanne Barr, a national Associated Press article.  Last Sunday, we were honored to have celebrated labor-rights journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, as the guest for an hour-long webchat.? ?Now we want to know what everyone else thinks about the project and the fairness of minimum wage in general.  Personally, I don’t think an hour of human labor should cost the same as a large latte (you know, the drink we probably all had on our way to work this morning?)  Imagine having to work an hour at your job just to pay for that coffee—or being forced to raise a family on that kind of income because the government said you weren’t worth being paid anything more.  Millions of people face just that dilemma every morning, every day, and it just pisses me off that they have to be in that position.? ?I invite you all to come visit the blog site and tell us what you think about the $5.15 federal minimum wage, however you want to do that.  Post a comment under one of the videos and tell us your opinion or your story.  Or pick up a video camera like I did and interview a friend or neighbor working for poverty wages and post the video on YouTube or your own blog and tell us about it.? ?As far as YouTube goes, the comments some of our participants have received there have run the gamut from supportive to downright hateful (so we’ve been taking our blows, too).  If you feel like entering the debate their, check out the comments under Jessica’s videos and see if you agree with some of them (I bet you won’t, some of them are just plain obnoxious).
 ?For those of us who worked on 7 DAYS, we never considered the project a simple campaign tactic, or a partisan appeal or political story.  We wanted 7 DAYS to be a humanistic project. From the beginning, we tried to engage the blogosphere from the heart.  We empathize with the people who told us their stories not because we feel sorry for them, but because we ARE them.  Me, and you, and every American of any wallet size working to make ends meet–none of us is any different than a minimum-wage worker, and circumstance could deliver any of us into a minimum-wage income in an instant.? ?Last week, 30,000 people heard that message.  Some were convinced.  Some weren’t.  Were you?  Come tell us.

Speech over ? 

I lived in a small town of 8000 where the biggest employer, a mill, had 800 people on the payroll. Every few years the union would freak out and inevitably get their raise. All the businesses in town would immediately raise their prices but especially the landlords would add another 50 bucks to the rent. Not everybody worked with the union but they had to pay the increases too. Even the local government saw it as a fiscal opportunity.

Is it pessimistic to believe the same thing will happen when the minimum wage goes up. The truth is it’s the employers of minimum wagers who are the real problem. The extra cream they’ve gotten used to will just go up another notch and they will simply charge more. It’s not a long term solution but to be frank, it’s not a solvable problem. Any civilization that succeeds in making a bunch of people wealthy has slavery. There are too many things the rich require for it to be any other way.

This society is kidding itself. It desperately needs it’s faceless masses to do all the menial things that give them a sense of priviledge. That won’t change until empathy kicks in and don’t hold your breath for that.

Making an extra few dollars an hour is the carrot on the stick it to ya.

Our nation’s strength has always lie in our unification. Despite ethnic, political, religious or financial differences, we were all on the same team; we were all Americans. But through designed dissension, that unification has been lost. We no longer care for fallen teammates because we are no longer a team. In promoting disunion, our business, news agency and government leaders have weakened the links that bind us. We don’t need terrorists to divide us; we allow our rule-makers to do it.

And it isn’t just teens trying to make it on minimum wage anymore. If companies aren’t shipping jobs overseas, too many routinely rotate out even practiced employees just to keep payroll low and government policy is to blame. Economic mobility, the ladder to success, and ingenuity have all been ravaged by this highly contagious bottom-line rivalry. America used to do better. Canada now offers more economic mobility than the US and too many US Americans don’t realize they are just one lost career, stolen retirement or even one misdiagnosis from minimum wage poverty.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, changes in the federal minimum wage from 1938 to 1968 jumped by a factor of 6.4. Meaning the 1976 minimum wage of $2.30 should be $14.72 today. Even during the forty years from 1938 to 1978 the federal minimum wage climbed by a factor of 10.6 from 25-cents to $2.65. Meaning the late 1966 wage of $1.40 now should pay $14.84 per hour. Instead, that is nearly the average factory pay. For decades minimum wage graciously kept pace with climbing prices and a growing economy. So why not today? Corporate profits, CEO and Capitol Hill salaries have all inflated. So then why not workerbee wages?

While corporations enjoy record profits, car loans have stretched from 2-years maximum by law in the seventies to nearly 7-years now. Even home loans have stretched from 15-years with required 20-percent down to 30-years with no money down. Why? Because the economy is better? Because we are a richer nation? No! Because wages have not kept pace with prices. Government and industry would have you pay them interest on life-long loans rather than see you paid a fair wage. Theirs is a system of capitalizing instead of capitalism.

The argument that consumer prices would increase proportionally isn’t realistic; labor is a long diminishing element in production cost and only one factor. Others say that American exports would suffer due to higher labor costs. But many foreigners already enjoy higher wages and more disposable income than Americans do… where do you think all that cheap capital, money to lend us, comes from? They save – we don’t. Misspent social programs like Medicare and Social Security could again be made secure with increased tax revenue generated by multitudes earning higher wages. In fact, studies show that states with a higher minimum wage often have better growing economies because more workers have greater disposable income that drives business.

The NYT reported recently that nearly eight million men between the ages of 35 and 55 no longer seek employment in part because wages have not kept pace…  their incentive to work has been forfeited. A more effective economy would utilize its practiced workers, especially eight million of them. That’s about the size of the city of New York! If this were a spreading disease, it would be headlined an epidemic and we would be a nation in panic.

But let this minimum wage stand for two hundred years. Accept today’s thirty to fifty-percent high school drop out rate. Even stomach our growing obesity malady. Survival of the fittest. Right? The fact is that we have become a nation divided and we embarrassingly drop the ball when it comes to caring for our own fallen teammates. We need more business leaders who recognize that the declared right to the pursuit of happiness by wage prosperity has been filibustered. We need government leaders to prescribe effective cultural contracts and not just corporate-buddy contracts. We need to become the unified people, top to bottom, that we once were and restore the American Dream for all posterity.

So very, very sad, and yet, congress has how many times taken a significant raise? All things considered we are coming into a two-class society. How callous of the Frist types to ignore this plight of shame in America. Democrats should not throw to many rocks..Clinton did no better for the poor. This abuse of poor people crosses all party lines.