Last week, I explained what progressives consider a fair distribution of tax responsibilities. Now, let’s view the other side of that coin, fairly distributing the fruits of our work.
Throughout human history, extreme poverty has been the fate for most. We’re incredibly lucky to live now in the United States, the wealthiest country in the world, where we could eliminate poverty altogether, extreme or otherwise, if we chose to.
Progressives believe that no American who works hard and plays by the rules should have to live in poverty. The people who clean our buildings, serve our meals, provide nursing for the sick, care for our children, and do other necessary but low-paying jobs should have lives with decent housing, healthcare, education, and quality of life. In a democracy like ours, all the people are supposed to have the power to decide whether the economy should serve the nation as a whole, or only a select few.
One way to ensure that every person who works hard can live with dignity is to set a minimum wage that pays for a person’s basic needs. A living wage would not only raise most of America’s poor out of poverty, but would also produce strong economic growth, as the formerly poor become middle class consumers. Indeed, every time the federal government has raised the minimum wage, it has reduced poverty, raised incomes, created jobs, and produced substantial economic growth. Unfortunately, the closest America ever came to a living wage policy nationally was in 1968, when the federal minimum wage was worth $8.89 per hour in today’s dollars. Today it is only $5.15 per hour.
The Maine Center for Economic Policy (www.mecep.org) has calculated a living wage for different family types in every county in Maine, in 2004 dollars, and the results may surprise you. On average, statewide, a single person must make $9.23 per hour to meet basic needs. In Cumberland County, the figure is $9.43 per hour. A single parent with two children in Cumberland County must make $19.42 per hour. Two parents with two children must make $12.13 each. Each would have to have full-time work, too.
Maine’s minimum wage is actually $6.50 per hour, higher than the federal one but too low to meet basic needs in Maine. This is why Maine’s working poor often go without basic healthcare, amass crushing credit card debt levels and even go hungry.
I think it makes sense in Maine to gradually work toward a establishing a minimum wage that would be a living wage for a single person. We could then expand the state and federal earned income tax credits (EITC) to make work pay even more for families, so they can give their children a decent shot at the American Dream. To be absolutely certain that small businesses are not hurt, we should start out by setting a higher minimum wage standard for those larger companies, which can most easily absorb the small additional cost.
It’s possible that not all liberals support establishment of a living wage and I define “liberal” as anyone from the moderate to the far left. However, everyone on the left agrees with progressives (and with the framers of our Constitution) that government should invest in the public good. We believe government should foster an economic system that respects everyone’s basic humanity and allows everyone the opportunity to realize his or her potential. It is this view that unifies the left, not the litany of absurd and hateful stereotypes that Lane Hiltunen listed in his column of last week.
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