SULLIVAN'S SALVOS
July 25, 2019
Sullivan’s Salvos 7/30/19
In this edition:
*Happy Anniversary Melissa!
*Warren for President!
*Don’t Tell Me “We Can’t”!
*Pet Peeve: Parking!
*Minimum Wage “Intent”
*Did You Know?
*Happy Anniversary Melissa!
August 1stis our anniversary. It goes without saying, but I am a very, very lucky man! Happy Anniversary, Honey! I love you!
*Warren for President!
As I hope you know, I have endorsed Elizabeth Warren for President. I feel very strongly that she is what this country needs right now. No one is more courageous. No one is smarter. No one works harder. That is a great combo!
I would love to take some time to tell you why I support Senator Warren, and to answer any questions you might have. Just reply to this message and we will chat!
*Don’t Tell Me “We Can’t”!
Nothing makes me angrier than a politician on the campaign trail telling Americans “We can’t” do a given thing. Maybe it is difficult. Maybe it is unlikely. But DO NOT tell me we can’t!
Do we need to win the Presidency, House, and Senate? Tell me that. Do we need some fresh faces on the Supreme Court? Tell me that. Will it be expensive? Tell me that. Should we focus elsewhere? Tell me that. But DO NOT tell me we can’t!
Remember “Si Si Puede!”? Yes We Can! Politicians – your job is to inspire us. If you cannot do that, step aside, and let someone else lead!
*Pet Peeve: Parking!
I know it shows my age, but I can’t help it. I am going to go all Andy Rooney on you here for a moment. I have a real pet peeve with people who fail to park within the lines.
Some of these cases are blatant. Others may just be someone who was in a hurry. But in many places in Johnson County, parking is at a premium. Taking two or more spots can really inconvenience a wide group of people. I know it is really difficult for us if we have our granddaughter or my mother with us. It also inconveniences people with disabilities.
So please – be thoughtful when you are parking. Get into the middle of the stall. In the lot, in the ramp – wherever. Other people are counting on you doing this right!
*Minimum Wage “Intent”
(This first ran in Salvos in August of 2016, but seems necessary again today.)
I have heard MANY people make the claim, “The minimum wage was never intended to be a living wage.” That is a bold claim… it implies that you know what the architects of the program thought.
There is really only one way to fact check that claim, and that is to go to the Father of the minimum wage: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We should find out what FDR intended!
Teresa Tritch did exactly that for the New York Times. Here is her blog post:
In the more than 75 years since Congress first enacted a federal minimum wage — at 25 cents an hour — lawmakers have increased it nine times, reaching the current level of $7.25 an hour in 2009. And with every increase the same objections have been raised.
Today, instead of dismantling these arguments on my own I decided to get a little help from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had to fight Republicans, conservative Democrats, the Supreme Court and corporate leaders to pass the initial minimum wage in 1938.
*Objection: Raising the minimum wage will hurt business and reduce employment.
“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.” (1933, Statement on National Industrial Recovery Act)
*Objection: $10.10 an hour is too much, maybe $9.
“By living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level — I mean the wages of a decent living.” (1933, Statement on National Industrial Recovery Act)
*Objection: Once you add in public assistance and tax credits, $9 an hour is plenty, and business could survive that.
“Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day, who has been turning his employees over to the Government relief rolls in order to preserve his company’s undistributed reserves, tell you – using his stockholders’ money to pay the postage for his personal opinions — tell you that a wage of $11.00 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry.” (1938, Fireside Chat, the night before signing the Fair Labor Standards Act that instituted the federal minimum wage)
*Objection: The minimum wage is a government mandate that interferes with the free market.
“All but the hopelessly reactionary will agree that to conserve our primary resources of man power, government must have some control over maximum hours, minimum wages, the evil of child labor and the exploitation of unorganized labor.” (1937, Message to Congress upon introduction of the Fair Labor Standards Act)
It took five years from F.D.R.’s first inauguration in 1933 to enact the federal minimum wage. The period encompassed “Black Monday” on May 27, 1935, when the Supreme Court invalidated the new labor standards in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, and “White Monday” on March 29, 1937, when the Court reversed course by upholding the minimum wage in Washington state, setting the stage for passage of a federal version.
Today, with census data showing that one third of Americans are either in or near poverty, the arguments in favor of an adequate minimum wage are still compelling. The difference is that the minimum wage has gone from being a bold advance in labor law to a basic tool for broader prosperity, albeit one that Congress has failed to deploy fully. That is a shame. What F.D.R. said in 1938 about establishing a minimum wage is also true about raising it: “Without question it starts us toward a better standard of living and increases purchasing power to buy the products of farm and factory.”
So next time someone claims, “The minimum wage was never intended to be a living wage,” refer him to FDR! Nice work, Teresa Tritch!
*DID YOU KNOW? Read the objections to every increase in the minimum wage over the 80 years of its’ existence. They are the same arguments you hear today. The predictions of disaster did not come true in the 30s, 50s, 70s, 90s, and they will not come true in the 2020s.
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---Rod
posted by Rod Sullivan @ 2:46 PM
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