Sen. Bernie Sanders stood up for the American public again, Thursday, during a Joint Economic Committee hearing gathered to discuss income inequality. Setting a tone for the meeting, one lawmaker expressed dismay over the extent to which taxpayers involuntarily (and regularly) subsidize retail goliath Walmart’s investors.
Founded by Sam Walton, the Walton family still owns major stock in Walmart and are considered one of the richest families in America, if not the entire world. According to Sanders, however, in a conflict of interest that would give Joseph Heller and Franz Kafka a run for their money, the retailer (known for underpaying its workers and retaliating against those attempting to unionize, resulting in higher profits for Walmart and a large portion of what is now commonly referred to as America’s “working poor“), also benefits further when their under-paid workers in turn use Food Stamps and Medicaid.
Speaking to a panel of experts, Sanders asked:
Do you think the wealthiest family in this country should have large numbers of employees that depend on Medicaid?
In response, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley,? Robert Reich said:
That is corporate welfare of the worst kind.
Yet SNAP and unemployment programs are being cut across the country. As soon as the corporate economy starts to rise, the constituent economy is left to fend for itself and the illusion of overall recovery and prosperity is pumped through the media, adding to the pressure and anxiety average workers face and struggle with on a daily basis. It’s a wonder there isn’t more gun violence in this country, considering the conditions and methods that have accompanied the strangling of the middle class.
A major focus of the hearing was debating whether the economy would benefit from raising the minimum wage. President Barack Obama, as well as Democrats in Congress, support a bill that would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, up from $7.25, stipulating also that the wage would have to keep up with inflation in the future.
Critics, of course, claim vaguely that raising minimum wage would “hurt job growth”, especially for low-wage workers, but one might just as easily ask what kind of growth ever seems to accompany all these low-paying jobs? What growth do workers receive? What other kinds of jobs are out there anymore, anyway? And at what point does corporate muscle pushing and lobbying for ever-cheaper labor in order to remain “globally competitive” cross a line where workers will realize they would not be any worse off not having a job at all? At some point working 40+ hours a week for so little money where one still ends up homeless and destitute will surely result in folks refusing to work, but perhaps that is why science is working so hard to invent such contraptions as robotic bees?
But back in reality, highly acclaimed economists, including numerous Nobel laureates, are endorsing the President’s support for raising the minimum wage, which aims to institute $10.10 an hour by 2016.
Their reasoning? Common sense.
Boosting low-income workers’ salaries allows those workers to spend more, creating the need for more jobs, more goods to meet demand, and creates a ripple effect in the pay scales for those above them — ultimately adding to a boost in the overall economy, even if the corporate black holes currently devouring the country and planet take a very slight dip in their own billion-dollar incomes. It’s never easy for anyone to take a pay cut, but still, if it has to happen somewhere, perhaps the billionaires who made their money through taxpayer subsidies and wage theft could take a small hit in order for the country to recover. Better them than middle class families, single mothers, the disabled, children, our education system and soldiers dying in a field… Many in need of assistance would have never needed to “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps” in the first place had they never had their wages and pensions stolen from them.
Reich went on to say:
A raise in the minimum wage, not a gigantic raise, would actually help job growth in terms of creating more money in the hands of people who can turn around and buy stuff, and thereby have a positive multiplier effect.
Hilariously, Scott Winship of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, responded by claiming raising the minimum wage too high too fast could have unintended, less than favorable consequences.
I think we should not raise the wage above levels that would cause Walmart not to hire their workers.
But clearly Winship represents the corporate agenda. It is up to American citizens (and the politicians they elect to represent them), to represent the agenda of the American people. Community — our daily lives living amongst others — is made up of so many more considerations than the business agenda alone. There is more to America’s sense of community than Wall St., or even Main St. for that matter, and that is what supporters of raising the minimum wage, such as President Obama and Sen. Bernie Sanders, are pushing toward.
What Winship and others fail to realize is that their old line about raising the minimum wage causing companies like Walmart not to hire workers only makes sense as a possibility up to a certain point. Once wages sink below an unspecified threshold, workers will suddenly no longer be interested in such jobs regardless; the pay will just be too little to bother.
People will not continue to work away their lives, sacrificing time with their loved ones, only to end up with nothing, facing homelessness, debtors’ prison, and constant harassment from collection agencies. At some point, workers will simply say enough is enough. Raising the minimum wage is one step toward rebuilding the middle class.
It will pay the Waltons in the long run to remember that the only thing between living a life of luxury and the poor having nothing left to eat but the rich is a healthy middle class.? If the corporate elite continue on their current path, it’s only a matter of time before it’s “Goodnight, John-Boy.”
Edited/Published by: SB
