GOP senators did exactly what the president knew they would do. It was all political theater giving Republicans a chance to play to their core constituents, especially small business owners, and Democrats a chance to play to their core supporters, including young people and low-wage earners.
Proposed was a plan to boost the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10. Republicans argue such a boost would cost 1 million jobs. Democrats argue the increase would lift millions out of poverty.
Increasing the minimum wage has widespread public support, although it is less popular among Republican voters than Democrats and independents. It is so popular, in fact, that more than a dozen states -- including California -- have raised their rates above the federal minimum or started legislative debates to do so.Adjusted for inflation, for example, today's $7.25 federal minimum wage is 33 percent lower than it was at its height in 1968.
The recovery from the Great Recession has created millions of jobs, but a new report from the National Employment Law Project, finds that the poor economy has replaced good jobs with bad ones, certainly low-paying ones. The president loves to talk about all the jobs that have been created on his watch, but he rarely mentions the kinds of jobs.
Unemployment has fallen to 6.3 percent, but that means 10.5 million Americans are still looking for work, giving employers little incentive to raise the wages of those who are working. Result: the average household's take-home pay has declined through the recession and recovery from $55,627 in 2007 to $51,017 in 2012. Republicans don't talk about this much.
At the same time, the average CEO of big companies is paid an average 300 times the pay of the typical American worker, a pay disparity that on its face puts the lie to the idea that people are paid what they're worth. Were the heads of all those too-big-to-fail banks American taxpayers had to bail out worth the millions lavished on them by their employers? Something else Republicans don't talk about.
Last year, Wall Street bonuses jumped 15 percent to an average of $164,000, and that's beyond salaries. The bonuses handed out totaled $26.7 billion, according to New York's state comptroller. That amount, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, would be enough to more than double the pay of all 1,085,000 full-time Americans who are now paid the federal minimum wage.
Not that Wall Streeters are going to share the goodies with those who serve them lunch in the corporate dining room. Neither is Washington, despite the political antics that surround the debate on the minimum wage issue.
Big companies provide big money to politics. With recent Supreme Court rulings making corporations "people" for the purposes of political free speech, the fix is in. And despite crocodile tears shed by Democrats about the horrors of the Citizens United and McCutcheon rulings, that party is just as guilt as the Republican Party of playing the money game. The only voices heard in Washington are those who belong to those toting money.
So why the Kabuki theater of minimum wage? The cynic might suggest it is the Democrats' way of diverting attention during the coming election season from Obamacare, the health reform act that Americans hate (except for all the beneficial parts they love). This may be poor calculus on the Democrats' part since a recent New York Times/CBS poll found that 52 percent of registered voters said they were willing to vote for someone who disagreed with them on raising the minimum wage, and only 30 percent said they would vote for someone who differed with them on Obamacare.
Democrats will pound Republicans about minimum wages; Republicans will pound Democrats about Obamacare. Americans are left with low wages and a health care system in serious need of actual reform. In other words, continued dysfunctional politics in America.
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