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The latest increase was in 2009…
It’s a Shame American Lawmakers Declined to Process the Minimum Wage Increase.
… but business will forever complain.
I learned that 7 Senators for the Democrats, plus one independent, have been blamed for insisting on excluding the minimum wage increase, which Biden wanted to take to $15 an hour (from the current shameful $7.25 an hour), and was included as part of the COVID-19 relief package approved by the House, and sent to the Senate for review and approval, but please, do not forget that the entire collective of 50 Republican Senators voted against the passing of the much needed relief package.
Given the bipartisan popularity of the corona virus relief package among the American population, Republican Senators limited their criticism of the plan to surrounding issues, like the inconvenience of including it as part of the virus relief package, the size of the package itself, or to its effects over the economy, without questioning the existence of the relief package itself.
I happen to believe that the growing levels of poverty in the U.S. are undoubtelely due to a clear insuficiency of the wages perceived by many Americans for their work.
“$1 in 2010 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $1.20 today, an increase of $0.20 over 11 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 1.67% per year between 2010 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 19.96%.
This means that today’s prices are 1.20 times higher than average prices since 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index. A dollar today only buys 83.33% of what it could buy back then.”
Article by Ian Webster: “ Value of $1 from 2010 to 2021" @https://www.officialdata.org/about
Using official numbers, Ian Webster, the author from the article from which the above quote was taken, points out a deterioration of the American purchasing power, over that 11 year period, equivalent to 20%.
Of course, the lower levels of salary suffer more for that loss of purchasing power.
Like me, anyone must have noticed the efforts to disguise inflation made by business owners, who figuratively by making the hole of doughnuts or bagels bigger, or by employing cheaper fabrics in their garments for sale, were keeping prices unchanged. So, intuitively I’d say that inflation in those 11 years, from 2010 to 2020, ran higher than the oficial number, which in itself is already too high.
Both, politicians and specially their corporate donors, must cease the abuse of labor in America, and understand that the survival of the American model (a democracy, pro-business society, economy based on comsuption) is threatened like never before.
We are all aware of the recent mob insurrectional attack to the Capitol building; we also saw how a non politician, dictatorship-prone, authoritarian and malignant individual, like Trump, attracted a very high number of voters in the last two Presidential elections.
It didn’t seem to matter his clear ineptitude to do the Presidential job.
What was different about the guy then? What is the secret about his large electoral following?
Well, singularly among other candidates, he did not respond to corporate donors. He did not have to obey their mandates, in perceived clear opposition to most political figureheads. And that seemed to be enough for a large number of voters.
Yes, other politicians — AOC and the squad — had also electoral success, and did not take money from big corporate donors either. But they opted only to secondary Congress positions, and all have to carry the unfair stigma, attached to the left in America. But through their political electoral succes, voters are also sending a clear powerful message.
Those politicians with ears should better listen.
