Why is the living wage so important? First, the “Have Littles” need to be and should be able to survive without government aide when they work. Second, is that getting the minimum wage to $15 to $18 an hour is the only way the little people can pry cash out of the hands of the hoarders and put in back into circulation. Increasing the minimum wage supports the spenders who will, with their buying habits, create more jobs to make and service the products that are purchased.
This is also the reason that the $10 to $12 an hour will not work. It will only disqualify these workers from government aide; but the $15 to $18 an hour minimum wage would not only remove the need for government aide, but would also give the workers some disposal income. We, the workers, probably are the only means to pry this money from the greedy.
The government will fight with lobbyists tooth and nail to stop a higher wage. Just look at one of the big reasons that the cash is growing in the hands of just a few and that is a low inheritance tax. When the a rich person dies that person’s wealth is passed onto the relatives, usually children, who did nothing to make the money, but they end up paying a low tax rate on this accumulated wealth.
The wealth of this country is shared among the same families, such as the Waltons, Kochs, Murdochs, and Hiltons, among others. Then there is the lowest tax on the wealthy that we have ever had and will not change while the rich oligarchies control the government. One argument that is used to justify taxing the middle and poor class is that there are more of us than there are of the rich. The problem with this idea is that the rich have all the money.
Until the government representatives are voted out or refuse to be controlled by the corporations’ lobbyists funded by Wall Street and the 1 percent, we, the people, are the only game in town. As Teddy Roosevelt said, “It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes. It is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced.”
One city has gotten the message. There is a push for a $15 to $18 an hour, such as the City of Davis, California’s initiative to establish a minimum hourly wage that would start at $11 an hour and eventually reach $15 an hour with an annual increase based on the consumer price index.
I think that there will be more of these initiatives across the world, even an initiative to pay workers $2,500 a year to all adults whether they work or not. Remember it is all the people’s choice. We must make it happen. We cannot count on the government to do this or the rich to realize this is in the best interests for everyone.
Also, recall what President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, when confronted about workers’ rights, “I know it is the right thing, but you must make me do it.”
In 2012 more than a quarter of all political contributions came from just 30,000 people who represented the 1 percent of the 1 percent, 90 percent who spent the most won. Today, we are an experiment in either a democracy, which started in 1787 or an oligarchy, which is winning. The nonunion people, like Trump and Musk, have most all the tools in their pockets to destroy our unions. They have money, they have the courts, they have law enforcement, they have the media, and 50 percent of workers that don’t know this don’t know the history of the working class people. This is the perfect storm to lose all the gains workers have made whether they’re union or not, even our Social Security and Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act. So, now we will have to go way back to the late 1920s and ‘30s and dig up the old labor party books. One book, written in 1964, has the information, The Rebel Voices, an IWW Anthology by Joyce L. Kornbluh, educator, activist, and advocate. The history of our labor...
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