Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Raise Federal Minimum Wage Now

Raise Federal Minimum Wage Now

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The new increased Federal Minimum Hourly Wage will now be $6.55 per hour starting this Thursday, July 24, 2008 which is a far cry from the $10.08 per hour which would have brought the Federal Hourly Minimum Wage to the same purchasing power of the Federal Hourly Minimum Wage of the 1960's.
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America is suffering through high cost oil and food which is running up the costs of everything else. Public transportation, rents, college tuition, utilities, insurance, and everything else is going up in price. Our economy depends on consumer spending and the first place to start to improve the economy is to raise the Federal Minimum Hourly Wage from the current level of $5.85 to at least $10.00 which is the amount it should have been raised to during the last increase a long time ago to give those workers the purchasing power of the minimum wage earners of the 1960's. With the high increase in oil and other things recently it should probably be much more than $10.00.

The Republicans led by President George Bush wanted low wages for Americans and that is what they did by not providing decent minimum wage for people. Now the problems of high prices is coming to roost making new purchases difficult especially for minimum wage earners. Now the Republicans need consumers to spend money to help the economy and need to increase the minimum wage to a decent, humane level.

Unbelieveably, it took almost 10 years on July 24, 2007 when the federal minimum hourly wage was increased to the disgraceful $5.85.

For the American economic machine to work properly, Amercian labor must be treated fairly. The Republican leadership took advantage of lower wage earning Americans by keeping the minimum wage artificially low for far too many years. Bush and Congress also unfairly increased the supply of low wage workers by not protecting the border with Mexico allowing millions of illegal workers to seek jobs replacing Americans on the job in America, not rounding up the illegal aliens and deporting them, and not prosecuting the employers of illegal aliens.

If the Federal Hourly Minimum Wage was increased to $10.00 or more which is the right thing to do, it would help solve another national disgrace problem of the illegal aliens at least to some extent. Employers would replace many illegal aliens with American citizens who are generally better educated and can speak English. Employers would be discouraged to hire illegal aliens because legal American citizens would be better bargains if they had to pay $10 per hour for labor. More American citizens would be encouraged to work at the $10 per hour level than at the current unfair disgraceful level of $5.85 which was made effective July 24, 2007. If employers replaced illegal aliens with American citizens the illegal aliens would probably return to their home countries.

It should be noted that most states have higher minimum wages than the Federal government and the worker receives the higher rate. Even the state of Texas will pay more starting July 24, 2008 at $6.55 per hour.

Write to your elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels telling about your concerns. If Americans do not express themselves, we will continue to wind up with disgraces in the future.