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Vol. 8 No. 46…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…November 18, 2005
Bit of History
Minimum Wage (1930-1997)
The United States’ efforts to legislate a national minimum
wage began with the New Deal in the 1930's. Congress passed the National Industrial Recovery Act
(NIRA) on June 16, 1933. It
contained provisions for minimum wages to be paid in certain industries to
increase the purchasing power in the hands of consumers, established codes of
fair competition aimed at supporting prices and stimulating economic revival
from the Great Depression. Section
7 of the NIRA, which affirmed the right of labor to bargain collectively, led
to the establishment of the National Labor Board (NLB) to settle
labor-management disputes.
On May 27, 1935, the US Supreme
Court in A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (295 U.S. 495)
ruled the NIRA unconstitutional.
Section 7a of the NIRA, which dealt with labor issues, found its way
into the Wagner or National Labor Relations Act (1935). A key piece of New Deal legislation,
the Wagner Act guaranteed workers the right to organize and bargain
collectively, defined some unfair labor practices and established the National
Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 called for minimum wages to be
paid for work performed on contracts with the United States government for
construction, alteration, or repair of public buildings or public works. Congress passed the Walsh-Healy Public
Contracts Act of August 1936, which set minimum wages and maximum hours for
work done on all government contracts in excess of $10,000.
Commonly called the Wages and Hours Law, the Fair Labor
Standards Act (FLSA) established a minimum hourly wage for all employees
engaged in interstate commerce.
Effective October 24, 1938, it set the minimum wage at $.25 per hour (to
be raised gradually to $.40 by 1945).
FLSA also set the work week at a maximum of forty-four (44) hours to be
lowered to forty hours for most laborers, except agricultural, domestic and
maritime workers. It forbade the
employment of children under the age of sixteen in most areas, except
agriculture.
Although low, these standards raised the pay of 300,000
workers and shortened the workweek for 1.3 million laborers. In subsequent
years, the standards were raised repeatedly, and the scope of the law was
broadened to include additional categories of workers. By 1956, the minimum wage had been
increased to $1 an hour.
Under President John F. Kennedy (1961), the FLSA was
amended to include an additional 3.6 million workers. The newly covered employees worked primarily in large retail
and service enterprises, local transit, construction and gasoline service
stations. The minimum wage was
raised from $1.00 to $1.25 per hour, effective September 3, 1965.
In 1966, the FLSA was again amended to cover state and
local government workers in hospitals, nursing homes, schools, workers in
laundries, dry cleaners, large hotels, motels, restaurants and farms. Effective February 1, 1967, the
minimum wage increased to $1.40 per hour.
Since 1967, the minimum wage has been gradually raised
under Republican and Democratic administrations. The last raise came during the
Clinton administration. Effective
September 1, 1997, the minimum wage was raised to $5.15 per hour. (Sources: www.encyclopedia.com
and www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm)
Comments from the Bat Cave
The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is looking
forward to the coming holiday season.
He is too old to buy into the Santa Claus myth. Yet, neither his parents’ warnings
about limited resources nor lectures on the season’s commercialism have
dampened his enthusiasm. When
asked for comments on this quandary, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro gleefully
offered, “Here’s my wish list?”
Venue for an Artist
Party Pity
By Thistle
I am not a crook
I heard the head guy
say
Behind his peace sign
fingers
To hold the wolves at
bay.
We rose up on our
haunches
To boot him down the
road
Thought the other party
Would surely bear the
load.
I did not have sex
with that woman
The ladies man would
swear
While he held up air
traffic
So someone could cut
his hair.
So we rose up on our
haunches
To boot him down the
road
Thought the other
party
Would surely bear the
load.
We cheered when
smaller government
Reduced the welfare
state
While politicians
padded pockets
And wrote themselves
a raise.
Now we rise upon our
haunches
To boot them down the
road
And they go laughing
to the bank
Carrying our gold.
Free enterprise our
treasure
Outdated minimum wage
While our children
drive their beemers
And our workers
starve and age.
Again upon our
haunches
To boot them down the
road
When will we learn
partisan politics
Are not a princely
toad.
About Me: A wildflower among weeds, Thistle is an obsidian idea
poet. Her motto is “A permanent is
only temporary.” A 47 year-old
woman from Texas, USA, Thistle is a poet and lyricist. Visit her online at http://asylumsmiles.com/party.htm.
Hood Notes
Minimum Wage Holiday
As we approach the year-ending holiday season, it may be
instructive to place our outdated minimum wage in proper perspective. Traditionally, working poor families
that barely survive on low and minimum wages have found the US holiday season,
which is known for its commercial excess, can cause a great deal of
stress. Public schools and
mainstream media program children to expect Santa Claus to deliver a bundle of
trinkets that, even at Wal-Mart’s “everyday low prices,” busts the budgets of
poor working families. For poor
working parents, it is especially heart wrenching to disappoint their young
impressionable children.
In a nutshell, here is the working poor’s dilemma. The current minimum wage is $5.15 per
hour. In a forty-hour workweek,
minimum wage workers gross $206 per week.
While the majority of them pay no federal, state or local income tax,
every dollar earned by minimum wage workers is subject to the Social Security
tax. The worker’s share of the
15.3% Social Security/OASDI/Medicare tax is 7.65%. Given this fact, a minimum wage worker’s weekly take home
pay is approximately $190.24. If a
minimum wage worker has no unpaid days off, his/her annual disposable income is
roughly $9892.48. Imagine feeding,
clothing and housing a family on less than $10,000 a year!
Let’s place the purchasing power of this meager annual
income in perspective. In 1997
when the minimum wage was raised to $5.15 an hour, it might have purchased an
equivalent amount in goods and services.
However, because of inflation and its erosive effect on the purchasing
power of the dollar, it takes $6.24 or roughly 21% more in 2005 to buy the same
goods and services. To buy in 2005
what $9,892.48 purchased in 1997, a worker must bring home $11,969.90 for a
gross annual income of $12,979.20.
This holiday season the poor just may stay at home and buy
home heating oil, rather than spend limited income on trinkets made in China
and sold at Wal-Mart. Given a
debt-ridden middle class is likely to feel the strain of meeting holiday
expectations this year, retailers are bracing for one of the worst holiday
seasons in a long time.
Ironically, as the poor and middle class grapple with their limited
income dilemma, some members of the religious right are quibbling over whether
retailers, such as Wal-Mart and Target, should use “Merry Christmas” or “Happy
Holidays” in their in-store and online advertisement. With sanguine reasons,
retailers are more concerned that shoppers will buy too little to make a
holiday season, long divorced from religion, profitable.
Politics Y2K5
Rich Men-Poor
Families
Hurricane Katrina exposed US poverty. Killer Katrina washed away the fiction
that all US citizens live large in big houses, drive fancy cars, wear expensive
designer fashions and eat the best food their endless supply of money can
buy. To the contrary, the vast
majority of US families that do purchase big homes, gas-guzzling SUVs and other
such amenities do so on credit; most are paychecks away from bankruptcy and/or
homelessness.
Broadcast live begging to be
rescued from a rising tide
in Katrina’s wake were the nation’s real folk, the working poor that are
perpetually broke. While those
shown on television were mostly black, poor whites vastly outnumber blacks
nationwide. It is important to
dispel the myth that these people are sloths looking for government handouts;
most poor people work on full-time jobs.
Their hourly wage rate is simply too low to raise them out of poverty or
afford them the amenities so often associated with living in the United
States. Fact is, according to the
Census Bureau, more than 37 million US citizens live in poverty, many of them
are children living in homes with at least one working parent.
At today’s minimum wage of $5.15 an hour, a worker earns $10,712 per year. As pointed out by Senator Edward Kennedy, who recently sponsored another amendment to raise the minimum wage $1.10 over an 18-month period, this amount is $4,500 below the poverty line for a single parent with two children. The Kennedy measure failed mainly along a party line vote of 51 to 47.
The fifty-one Republicans voting against the measure gave
the same tired reasons that have always been used to oppose increasing the
minimum wage, i.e., it will hurt small businesses and increase
unemployment. Unfortunately,
neither Republicans nor Democrats have shown any reticence when it comes to
raising their pay. On top of all
the other perks they receive, including the best healthcare and per diem, members
of Congress, some of the richest men and women in the US, have approved seven
pay raises for themselves totaling nearly $30,000 since 1997. Over this same period, Congress
consistently voted down measures to increase the minimum wage to help poor working
families.
News You Use
Hosea Feed the Hungry
and Homeless
Atlanta-based Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless was born
in 1971, when Dr. Hosea L. Williams, one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s
Executive staff members, offered to buy a beggar a fish sandwich in lieu of
giving him money. As he watched
the hungry man devour the sandwich, Dr. Williams realized he was blessed. More important, Dr. Williams felt called
to help the less fortunate.
Hosea Feed the Hungry started small with Dr. and Mrs. Juanita
Williams and a small group of volunteers feeding 100 men in the Wheat Street
Baptist Church’s Educational Building every Sunday. The effort soon outgrew the building and the available
supply of food. The group moved to
a new location and added other services to address the needs of the hungry and
homeless. As the ranks of the
homeless and hungry grew to include women and children, the organization
expanded to serve entire families.
By the 1990's, the Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless
signature "Holiday Dinners" offered an array of services from hot
showers and job referrals to medical screenings to overflowing crowds at Turner
Stadium. While Dr. Williams died in 2000, his family, under the leadership of
his daughter, Elisabeth Omilami, has continued and expanded Hosea Feed the
Hungry and Homeless to offer year-round services, including four Holiday
Dinners (Thanksgiving, Christmas, MLK Day and Easter Sunday), housing
assistance, job skills training and international relief efforts in Haiti and
the Philippines. Since its 1971
founding, the organization has helped thousands of Atlantans. It recently
opened its doors to assist Hurricane Katrina victims.
The ranks of the hungry and
homeless continue to grow.
Volunteers and donations are always needed. Helping others is a priceless gift. By volunteering to aid the less
fortunate, we enrich our lives and provide young people with positive role
models. To find out how you can
help Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless, visit the organization’s website at www.hoseafeedthehungry.com.
Disgruntled wants to know:
It is common knowledge that the intelligence used to justify the war
against Iraq was erroneous. It is
also true that nearly everyone, like an echo chamber, cited the same lies in
the lead up to the conflict.
However, only George W. Bush made the decision, even before 9-11,
according to some sources, to go to war.
When will Bush admit that he was wrong and assume responsibility for
acting on cherry-picked intelligence to justify war?
Disgruntled says: It’s the economy stupid! While the Bush administration touts a strong overall
economy, which includes a gross domestic product of more than 3.0% and relatively
low interest, inflation and unemployment rates, nobody is listening. Real wages are falling. According to
the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the real wage fell in the most recent quarter
2.3% lower than 2004. There are no
economic policies in place to end the cycle of rising gas, food, healthcare and
housing prices. With plenty of
illegal immigrants flooding the US labor market and big manufacturers and
industries, such as automobile and airlines in trouble, employers are not
raising wages and benefits. Higher
prices and stagnant wages translate into a declining standard of living. No wonder Bush’s approval rating is low
when it comes to his handling of the economy. Feel good economic statistics are irrelevant when people
pinch pennies to purchase gas to get to work in lieu of eating. The economy is not working stupid!
Disgruntled feels: Fanatical! The
insurgency to oust the US from Iraq uses improvised explosive devices and
suicide bombers as their main weapons against a well-equipped army. US military and civilian leaders call
these insurgents fanatics and express abhorrence at their heinous acts. Filled with moral certitude, certain
audiences applaud as these leaders vow to utilize whatever means at their
disposal to capture and/or kill these “Islamo-fascist extremists.” A recently aired Italian documentary,
made possible by journalist Giuliana Sgregna, who escaped an assassination
attempt in covering the story, shows the US used chemical weapons against
insurgents and civilians in Fallujah.
After originally denying its use, the US now admits it used white
phosphorus, a chemical agent, rooting out insurgents in this Iraqi city.
Surely, such an act of shock and awe is equally as heinous as a suicide
bomber detonating in a city square filled with troops and civilians. And, since the act is equally heinous,
the perpetrators must also be classed as fanatical.
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Phone Calls
Email redazione@uruknet.info
The Corporate Media's threat to Freedom...By Mike Whitney...There's no
similarity between the corporate media and a "free press". The
corporate media operates according to its structural make-up, which requires it
to serve the interests of ownership and maximize profits. Its top-down style of
management ensures that it aligns itself with the political powers that, in
turn, create the opportunity for greater prosperity. This explains why media
giants have consistently concealed the Bush administration's attack on civil
liberties, supported the expansion of executive power, and paved the way for
global war. After all, they are just acting in their own best interest,
accommodating the political establishment to allow for more consolidation and
expansion. One hand washes the other.
Email www.CNSNews.com - According to the Treasury Department,
from 1776-2000, the first 224 years of U.S. history, 42 U.S. presidents
borrowed a combined $1.01 trillion
from foreign governments and financial institutions, but in the past four years
alone, the Bush administration borrowed
$1.05 trillion. "The
seriousness of this rapid and increasing financial vulnerability of our country
can hardly be overstated," said Rep. John Tanner (D- Tenn.), a leader of
the Blue Dog Coalition and member of the House Ways and Means Committee. "The financial mismanagement of
our country by the Bush Administration should be of concern to all Americans,
regardless of political
persuasion," said Tanner in a press release.
Email www.truthout.org The indictment against Cheney's Chief
of Staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, clearly states that Cheney and
Libby discussed Plame's undercover CIA status and the fact that her husband,
former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, traveled to Niger to investigate claims that
Iraq tried to acquire yellowcake uranium from the African country in early June
of 2003. Yet the following month, Cheney and then-White House press secretary
Ari Fleischer asserted that the vice president was unaware of Wilson's Niger
trip, who the ambassador even was, and the classified report Wilson wrote about
the Niger findings prior to his July 6, 2003 op-ed in the New York Times.
Email www.dailykos.com Too funny! Hastert and Frist make a big show of calling for an investigation into a leak allegedly affecting national security -- the locations of secret "black site" torture prisons. Then -- BOOM!!! Trent Lott said that he thinks it was a GOP Senator who leaked the info to the Washington Post. He says the details had been discussed at a GOP Senators-only meeting last week, and that many of those details made it into the Washington Post story. Money quote from Lott; "We can not remain silent. We have met the enemy, and it is us." All just reported on CNN. We are, folks, witnessing the full-on implosion of the national Republican Party, and not a second too soon.
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