Reading about the most recent raise in the federal minimum wage rate is not quite as exciting as reading the most recent Harry Potter book, but it has its moments. Example: The passage of the increase must have been done in such a magically sneaky fashion that it totally eluded the Republican senator Jon Kyle, who recently said that the only consistent legislative work Democrats have done in power is "the renaming of post offices." Getting the federal minimum wage raised was one of the central issues on the Democrats' agenda before the 2006 election. One would have thought that Senator Kyle might notice.
There was also the magic of getting the raise signed by President Bush. Harry Potter and his fellow wizards could have simply shouted some magical word to get those 70 extra cents per hour for the lowest paid workers of this country. The Democrats had to tie the increase into a package with both the $120 billion Iraq war spending bill and nearly $5 billion in tax relief for small businesses.
This was the case, of course, for one reason: The Republican Party really, really hates wage floors. They interfere with the pursuit of profit and the freedom to enter into contracts. A federal minimum wage of $5.85 per hour makes it impossible for a janitor to offer his services at fifty cents per hour; that is just plain wrong.
Republicans worry about these things. They also worry about the possible unemployment that a higher minimum wage might create, although several studies suggest that these effects are minor and might be compensated for by the additional income the better-paid workers now have to spend in their communities. They even worry that higher minimum wages might reduce uneducated workers' incentives to get educated -- but this worry is not enough to make them help these folks actually get the needed education.
Perhaps it is all these worries that kept the minimum wage at the same nominal figure for a decade prior to the Democrats' takeover of Congress. According to Nancy Pelosi, the Republicans stopped the topic from even being discussed in the House eleven times during those long years. Eleven times! But even the current raise (from $5.15 to $5.85) and the further raises planned for the next two years (to a total of $7.25 per hour) will not give the minimum wage the buying power it had in 1956, smack in the middle of that decade the Republicans remember so fondly. Achieving that would require a minimum wage of $7.65 in 2009.
This, combined with the fact that thirty states and the District of Columbia already had higher state minimum wages in place, make the recent federal raise look less impressive, particularly given the tax cut concessions it necessitated. But it was still worth doing for the 1.7 million minimum wage workers who saw their pay packets expand this July, and for the additional millions who will benefit from the further increases by 2009. As Pelosi noted, raising the federal minimum wage may not be enough to turn the Congress into a worker-friendly place, but it is a beginning.
On a purely political level, the Democrats have delivered on one of their concrete policy proposals; a proposal which garners wide public support and even that of many business people. This is no minor achievement given the obstructions they have faced in the Senate. No doubt Harry Potter or anyone else at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry could have done better. But for us ordinary Muggles, the knowledge that nearly two million low-paid workers will now have a little more money in their budgets is nothing short of magical.
