We have existing laws — Title VII, um, Lilly Ledbetter, all those existing protections in place — that, I believe, enforce and provide that people doing equal jobs are, certainly in this country, should receive equal pay. So, uh, that bill, in my view, didn’t add — in fact I think it created a lot of additional burdens that would have been hard, um, to make it more difficult for job creators to create jobs… . The reason that I voted against that specific bill is that, I looked at it, and there were already existing laws that need to be enforced and can be enforced and I didn’t feel like adding that layer was going to help us better get at the equal pay issue.
Kelly Ayotte: I Voted Against Equal Pay For Women Because We Have Enough Laws
Someone thinks that she is made of Teflon….
Dow 14,000 to me is a taunt; it’s a reminder that most Americans are working harder (or more efficiently) for essentially no more money, while the companies they work for prosper wildly (without sharing or hiring) and while investors in those companies watch their wealth balloon.
All the while, the plight of the American worker is treated as little more than a political piñata. The right says the problem is that the left requires companies to pay taxes to do business in the country. If only taxes could go away or be reduced, companies would start hiring madly and peace and prosperity would wash over the land.
The left says the problem is that the right is strangling government spending, restricting rivers of cash that would flow out of Washington, efficiently sweeping up the unemployed and depositing them into productive well-paying jobs.
One guy gets it…and he gets buried far off of the front page of the news or business section.
Making $2.15 an hour certainly does sound worse than today’s minimum wage, which federal law mandates must be at least $7.25 an hour. But what Blackburn didn’t realize is that she accidentally undermined her own argument, since the value of the dollar has changed immensely since her teenage years. Blackburn was born in 1952, so she likely took that retail job at some point between 1968 and 1970. And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator, the $2.15 an hour Blackburn made then is worth somewhere between $12.72 and $14.18 an hour in today’s dollars, depending on which year she started.
The highest minimum wage in the nation is set to rise again in 2013, as San Francisco’s low-end compensation rate will increase from $10.24 to $10.55 per hour.
In 2003, voters approved a local ordinance tying the minimum wage to the regional rate of inflation in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose. Set at $8.50 per hour when the law took effect, The City’s minimum wage has increased in every year but one since 2004.
City officials and low-wage worker advocate groups have long argued that increasing the minimum wage helps the local economy by giving service industry workers more disposable income to spend.
S.F. employers paying more
- Minimum wage has risen almost every year since 2004:
- 2004: $8.50 per hour
- 2005: $8.62 per hour
- 2006: $8.82 per hour
- 2007: $9.14 per hour
- 2008: $9.36 per hour
- 2009: $9.79 per hour
- 2010: $9.79 per hour
- 2011: $9.92 per hour
- 2012: $10.24 per hour
- 2013: $10.55 per hour
- Source: San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement
But a Washington, D.C., economic think tank funded by a restaurant and beverage industry lobbyist is pointing to a more recent University of Kentucky study showing that minimum wage laws like San Francisco’s contribute to a lack of jobs for young workers.
Costco charges charges low prices, makes a ton of money & still treats its employees well.
Just added emphasis:
For Costco, treating workers well has led to increased motivation, higher quality service, greater productivity and lower turnover. After the first year of employment, turnover was less than 6 percent, one of the lowest rates in the industry. The combination of good wages and the knowledge that there were opportunities for advancement was an important incentive for employees to work hard and build a career with the firm. The high quality of service provided by motivated, engaged employees at Costco, combined with the low prices, meant that customers returned and were willing to pay the membership fees. Costco’s high-quality service also attracted a clientele that shopped not only for basic goods but also luxury items, which were still more profitable, even with the low markup. As a result, Costco had higher annual sales per square foot than its most direct competitor, Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club, ($795 versus $516), and higher annual profits per employee ($13,647 versus $11,039) even though Costco’s average wage was 42 percent higher. Over 16 years, Costco grew from 206 warehouses and $16 billion in sales to 554 warehouses and $69.9 billion in sales.
Is it really fair to compare a Walmart, that doesn’t have a membership to Costco that does? I’ll give you a Sam’s Club vs. Costco, though.
The Economic Impact of a Walmart Store in the Skyway Neighborhood of South Seattle
This study has demonstrated that the impact of Walmart’s decision to develop a grocery store at the Skyway site in South Seattle would be a net loss to the regional economy of $10.01 million in economic output and $13.24 million in labor income. These impacts stem from the low wages Walmart pays to its hourly associates compared to the wages earned by comparable employees of existing retail grocery stores. The difference in wages, which we estimate to be at least $3 per hour, has the capacity to impact not only the workers themselves, but also the people from whom they purchase goods and services.
Go on, do your own study to find out if it is any different in another neighborhood.
Thanks for half of the truth. Robert Reich is looking at whole picture:
In their haste to cut the public debt, Europeans have overlooked the denominator of the equation. By reducing public budgets they’ve removed a critical source of demand — at a time when consumers and the private sector are still in the gravitational pull of the Great Recession and can’t make up the difference. The obvious result is a massive slowdown that has worsened the ratio of Europe’s debt to its total GDP, and is plunging the continent into recession.
A large debt with faster growth is preferable to a smaller debt sitting atop no growth at all. And it’s infinitely better than a smaller debt on top of a contracting economy.
The second lesson Merkel and others have overlooked is that the social costs of austerity economics can be huge. It’s one thing to cut a government budget when unemployment is low and wages are rising. But if you cut spending during a time of high unemployment and stagnant or declining wages, you’re not only causing unemployment to rise even further. You’re also removing the public services and safety nets people depend on, especially when times are tough.
Reich’s point there is that the folly of Merkel, Cameron and Sarkozy, et. alia. will be a drag on the U.S. recovery. That could be said of any state government in the USA that is slashing costs, too. It doesn’t matter if it is a neo-fascist like Michigan’s Rick Snyder or another neo-liberal like Kalifornia Über Alles Jerry Brown. Public sector employment creates income as good as or better than the private sector. It’s spending of all kinds that will but the recession away. If the USA wanted to put a dent in the recession, we’d be stealing pages from FDR’s playbook. It’s a given that Obama can’t get that done with right wing reactionaries in congress nor with centrists constantly trying to placate them.
It’s one thing for political campaigns to crank out half-truths like that. Honesty and complex thought have left politics long ago. But it’s different to regurgitate a half-truth from a campaign to be consumed by people with critical thinking capacities; the offense is compounded when said half-truth is presented by someone who has the word “truth” in their URL.
What is it that the GOP stands for, again?
Jerry Brown FTW.
I’m down with the clean jobs, but tax laws sending jobs out of state I’m learn about. Feel free to tell me more.
