Of course this amount, nearly double the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, is a non-starter for management and is not even close to being realistic. But it is a point to begin negotiations.
I love to troll the comments sections on Facebook where I follow USA Today, the Huffington Post, Daily Beast. When articles like those covering issues like this pop up the comments are generally pro business on the surface. The usual points are that these jobs are intended to be for young, unskilled workers. They are only meant to be entry level positions. They don't require any education. And then they usually get insulting. Calling the workers stupid and uneducated and not fit for "real" jobs. They usually cite bogus claims that minimum wage hikes will result in fewer jobs, slowdowns in hiring, rising cost of services, etc.
You can read refutations of that argument here: http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/02/department-of-labor-minimum-wage.html
What I find encouraging is the rising sentiment in this country that the scales have become far too unbalanced. The little people are starting to fight back.
There are many people in this country who come from families where there is plenty of support. If you continue your education after high school your parents probably helped you get a student loan. I know mine did. You maybe have the opportunity to live at home while you're in college. Maybe you don't even have to worry about holding down a job while you're continuing your education. Then if you complete it you have some contacts based on your family to help you get a job or at least get your foot in the door.
Then there are many poor families out there with children that don't enjoy these luxuries. Thankfully most people in this country have not had to endure abject poverty. The problem with that is that they don't understand the cycle that poverty creates. If you graduate high school and are only qualified to get a job working at something like a McDonald's taking orders or flipping burgers that's a job you're lucky to get. But you're also lucky to get anything close to 30 hours a week. Your family hasn't been able to help you build a credit record. Applying for student loans isn't nearly as easy as you would think. And if you do get them, finding a job where you can fit in school around a work schedule where you're expected to have open availability is even harder.
If you go to any typical inner city school you are probably not prepared for college. You don't have the same support base that nicer high schools provide. If you're lucky you'll have a teacher who acts as a mentor to help put you on the right path but most of these kids are only prepared to handle it as it comes. Colleges and universities and trade schools are crazy expensive and if you do get student loans you aren't guaranteed a job when you graduate so you can pay those loans off.
So yea, $15 an hour is an unreasonable goal. The president this week began the push for a hike in the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. It makes sense and I would like to see it. Odds are it will make it through the Senate then get killed on the floor of the House. Republicans would rather have their daughters marry a black guy than raise the minimum wage.
What is absolutely crazy to me is how U.S. businesses don't see a problem with the slash and burn, profit over everything philosophy that has controlled our system for the past four decades. It pervades everything in our economy.
You see examples across the board in the grocery store. That pound of sausage is now 14 oz. That half gallon of ice cream is now 750 ml. That pound of coffee is 14 oz. But prices didn't change. And many products are priced at a point where most people won't buy them. Many could be sold at a lower price point and sell more without as much waste but the prices remain unrealistic based on what a company wants its profits to be. A Drew Brees jersey that costs $20 or less to make sells for $100. So instead of selling a million at $50 for a $30 profit they sell 100,000 at $100. It flies in the face of sanity.
But the worst thing is that they keep profits high by paying hourly workers less. Wages have not kept up with inflation by a long shot. Yet if workers were paid more they would have more spending power and buy more products. That's the "rising water lifts all boats" philosophy of which American businesses seem to have lost sight. And in the meantime those at the top continue to take increasingly larger chunks of the pie for themselves.
If people think the current course of this capitalist system can be maintained they're delusional. Throughout history the more people feel marginalized the more they begin to demand change. Sometimes in the form of a revolution. If you think this couldn't happen in the America of today I wouldn't blame you. I don't think there's been a point in our history where people have been so disconnected from reality. TV, movies, sports, social media, these are the modern equivalent of the games of ancient Rome. Red meat for the masses to keep them happy and diverted.
I was actually going to write this post about sports as the new opiate of the masses, far outpacing religion in our time. But while media serves to keep the people quiet it's also gaining power as a force for change. Social media is helping to make people demand to be heard and recognized.
I don't have faith in our democratic system. Most of the people who make it to power have been bought and sold by various interests who constantly fight to keep wages low. I can predict right now that Hillary Clinton will be elected president in 2016 and, even as a Democrat, I couldn't be less happy. She will be a staunch defender of the status quo. But the silver lining, I think, will be a backlash. I think it will open the door for a true Progressive like Elizabeth Warren to position herself as a counter to the business as usual politicians like Clinton.
I think we're getting close to a true tipping point where the people, the real people, not the teabagger nutwingers out there with their guns and Bibles, will begin to use social media to propel us toward a change. I think we're going to see an amped up version of Occupy Wall Street that will have staying power. I think people will begin to feel so disenfranchised that their demands will begin to have power that can't be ignored.
A living wage is a start. But much more must be done. Education needs to be made available to people without the means to afford the current system. Maybe we will see a push for initiatives where things like learning for free from the Khan Academy will be considered actual education on paper. Right now online degrees are prohibitively expensive and do little but help upper management add letters to the end of their names and titles.
I think a leader like Elizabeth Warren would come on like a modern day Teddy Roosevelt, the founder of the Progressive movement, and drum the people up to the point where anything but radical change is not possible. Anything but the current system which merely abets this state of things were the top 1% just keep getting fatter off of our backs.
As the moneyed interests have wrested control back America's decline has been precipitous. The decades long struggle against communism, though great for business interests internationally, has left us just poorer as a country that can no longer spend the kind of money we had been on the military and benefiting from the jobs that created. The globalism and trade agreements like NAFTA that business interests have pushed on the U.S. have led to so many lost manufacturing jobs and the only net gain has been in the pockets of those who were already doing just fine thank you. It's not something that will maintain itself. Get ready for the change.
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