America’s Workers Deserve a 'Clean' Minimum Wage Increase

To the Human Rights Defenders who used UUSC's Legislative Action Center to defeat the "bait-and-switch" minimum wage bill HR 5970, we say "Thank you!"

While America's lowest paid workers desperately deserve a raise, the "trifecta" minimum wage bill put up for vote in the Senate yesterday was peppered with poison pills.

Why was this such a rotten bill for the vast majority of Americans?

It gave to the rich . . .and robbed the working poor.

• Millions of housekeepers, waiters and waitresses, parking attendants, and other hardworking employees would have gotten a pay cut, as HR 5970 includes a “tip penalty” proposal which took money away from tip-earning employees who are currently earning a higher statewide minimum wage in seven states.

• For other workers, the bill’s proposed minimum wage “pay raise” wasn't enough – it proposed a raise at an unacceptably low rate – not enough to keep up with rising inflation and cost of living increases. Consider that consumer prices jumped “the most in 3 months, propelled by rising costs for a wide range of goods and services, including gasoline, clothing and medical care,” The consumer price index is the government’s most closely watched inflation barometer. So what’s really behind rising prices and inflation? According to recent EPI analysis “the entirety of price inflation in the non-financial corporate sector over the last year can be explained by rising profit margins.”

• A proposed estate-tax cut, bundled into the bill gave billions of dollars in tax cuts to wealthy heirs to fortunes from Wal-Mart and other low-wage businesses.

Which leads to . . .

Why the bill was bad for the taxpaying public:

The bill’s proposed tax cuts for the nation's richest “BillionHeirs” translated into:

• More budget cuts in health care, education, environment, community economic development, and other vital services and infrastructure. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the “tax breaks” in this bill would cost $753 billion in the first 10 years alone, forcing lower spending for Medicaid, education, health care, and other programs.

The movement to raise the federal minimum wage will require a savvy and informed public who can sort out the political jockeying from the economic realities.

Stay tuned to our website for updates on the ongoing national, statewide, and local effort to strengthen workers right to a living wage. And again, thank you to all those of you who took action and spoke out for economic justice.