After Montana voters passed the minimum wage hike last November, a lot of right-wingers were apoplectic. Unemployment would reach heights not known since Herbert Hoover was President! We'd have Carter-era inflation! Our economy would stagnate! All the first borns would die!
Turns out none of that is the case. What is our unemployment? Lowest in the nation (and very low, even by non-relative standards). Job growth? It's high. Inflation? Doesn't seem to be a huge local problem (Oh, the right-wingers cry, my $4.00 burritos cost $.50 more now, it is oh so horrible).
In other words, raising the minimum wage worked. Ask low wage workers, they know (check the comments on that post, by the way, as the author does a pretty good job of debunking the inflation myth for small minimum wage increases).
Similar good news comes from Oregon, where the Oregon Center for Public Policy has crunched the numbers once more with their in-state minimum wage rising to just shy of $8.00. During the time that they've had the minimum wage in place, Oregon's payroll growth has been huge. In addition, Portland area restaurant prices have actually grown more slowly than around the country.
The reactionaries are wrong. Minimum wages actually compensate for some standard market problems, including the fact that many business owners apparently undercompensate low-skilled labor (given the elitism of the anti-minimum wage crowd, this doesn't surprise me).
Lately, a lot of rhetoric coming out of the U.S. Senate has been about the need for 60 votes to pass anything.
Why? The filibuster of course.
And it is true that it takes 60 votes to end a filibuster. But the truth is that we haven't had a filibuster -- not a real one anyway -- in quite some time.
Now, this is not a new idea. Some GOP grassroots suggested the same with some judicial appointees. GOP leadership ignored the clamoring, but I don't think they did so because it was bad strategy, but because they knew the more the American people heard about their anti-privacy, anti-civil-liberties, pro-corporate nominees, the less likely they were to support confirmation.
We face no such bind. Our issues are actually popular. Let's change the game.
Update: I should note -- this is one of those issues where it may be worthwhile to contact our Senators. Sen. Kent Conrad, from Montana's neighbor state of North Dakota, is applauding the strategy -- noting that the current Republican strategy is simply to stop any policy achievements whatsoever. If Kent Conrad is on board, Jon Tester and Max Baucus should be as well:
Update 2 -- Well, that was quick. Reid has announced that the Senate is going Oxford-style -- they'll be open 24/7 if necessary and at 4am, it won't be pretty as Mitch McConnell tries to defend the President's war policies.
The only society in which that image is even close to just in one in which non-executive workers utterly failed to do anything related to productivity growth. Given that I've seen no one willing to make such an outrageous statement, why is this even an issue?
The Montana legislature is considering a bill to partially gut the minimum wage initiative we voters overwhelmingly passed last fall (at some point, you'd think politicians would realize that they probably don't have much grounds for self-confidence if they hold such strong doubts about the opinions of their constituents).
The bill would establish a tip penalty, lowering the wages for restaurant workers who receive tips. That means that when you're tipping, all you're doing is increasing the profit of the restaurant owner, not really rewarding good service (huzzah!).
The Brennan Center, one of the nation's premier non-partisan legal think tanks, has analyzed this legislation and found it to be deeply problematic.
The way that Republicans (and, unfortunately, some Democrats) have been talking on this bill, you'd think restaurant servers were fat cats living on large estates and driving Maseratis. The reality is way different.
Even with the $6.15 an hour minimum wage, typical compensation (including tips) for the 8,600 servers in Montana comes out to a whopping $7.32 an hour -- enough to make well under the poverty line while working full-time. No doubt, servers at high-end restaurants make more money, but these servers are an exception, not a rule. High end restaurants are also (hopefully) more profitable for their owners. If they're not, the owners should stop bitching and find themselves a line of work at which they are competent.
Even worse, the Brennan Center's legal analysis finds that the House Bill in question would have much more far-reaching implications for wages than the business community implies.
Luckily, the Senate has tabled this bill, but it will no doubt be brought up again in the future. That's because, for some folks, you can never do enough to relieve the mild economic hardships of multi-national oil companies and out-of-state wealthy landowners, and you can never do to much to squeeze low-wage workers on principle.
"The minimum wage-tax relief package was a good early lesson for them as to how things will work," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said with a chuckle in a recent interview.
The only reason that the term 'tax relief' shows up is because Baucus capitulated before the debate even began, but punking him doesn't stop the GOP from laughing at him. Considering how many times this has happened, is there any chance that Baucus will ever learn?
43 Republicans just voted to filibuster a minimum wage hike. No doubt that Senator Baucus' staff will point to this vote as proof that their early compromise to offer billions in tax breaks was necessary to get the minimum wage hike passed.
Of course, I know if I was in big business's back pocket and I knew a compromise that would let me claim I supported the minimum wage would emerge that would also get the support of my corporate backers because it hands out billions in tax cuts, well, I'd filibuster for a week, too.
I still think the Senate Dems, especially our senior Senator, gave away the store on this one.
Meanwhile, St. John McCain is among those filibustering the wage hike. If you hate poor people, he just might be the candidate for you in '08.
In response to questions about why Max Baucus is using Montana's Senate seat to make it harder to pass the minimum wage, we sadly get this: special-interest sockpuppet performances by very cynical people - people who say with a straight face that it is either A) impossible to get 60 votes on an issue supported by 83 percent of the public or B) that there is no political value in the worst case scenario of forcing the opposition to stand up and embarrass themselves trying to filibuster a measure supported by 83 percent of the public.
This is what we get - and the country suffers as these fake, disingenuous narratives serve as pathetic rationales for once again selling out the country.
(Author's Disclaimer: Barrett is Max Baucus' communications director)
I've noticed the criticism Max is taking over his move to provide a boost to small businesses as part of the minimum wage discussion.
The question you must ask yourself is do you want to raise the minimum wage or just make a political statement?
We've been making political statements over raising the minimum wage for a decade. The Senate has rebuffed 11 attempts to boost the minimum wage since 1998. Max wants to actually get it done, right now.
A little while ago, I said that for a moment I was proud that Max Baucus was my Senator. I also said I assumed he wouldn't improve himself when it comes to economic issues - and boy, was I right. By now, you've probably heard that Montana's very own Sen. Max Baucus (D) is using his first few weeks as the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee to try to attach special interest tax giveaways to the minimum wage bill. Max is insisting on insulting the public's intelligence by claiming that "this package of tax incentives will help a minimum wage increase pass the Senate and be signed into law." He expects us to believe we need to enact more corporate tax giveaways in order to get something that is supported by 83 percent of the public through Congress.
But as CongressDaily now reports, Max's genuflecting to monied interests actually severely threatens the passage of the minimum wage. Here's the excerpt:
"The $8.3 billion Finance Committee [tax cut attached to the minimum wage by Baucus] is fully offset over 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. However, with the Senate still operating under the budget put in place two years ago, the bill would result in a $281 million deficit over the five years covered by the FY06 budget, so any senator could raise a point of order. The tax bill would also be in technical violation if the Democrats' proposed pay/go rules requiring tax bills to be deficit neutral were in effect. Language introduced by Senate Budget Chairman Conrad would require that legislation not add to the deficit over either five years or 10 years. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Finance bill would cost nearly $8.7 billion over five years, but only $6 billion is offset."
Let me use my years in the muck of Capitol Hill-ese to translate this: Because Max is insisting on trying to attach his special-interest tax giveaways to the minimum wage bill, it makes the minimum wage bill subject to procedural obstacles the bill wouldn't face if it didn't have the tax breaks attached to it. These specific procedural obstacles make it much more easy for Republicans to kill the minimum wage bill.
As I said, Max is nonetheless arguing that he needs to support the tax breaks in order to pass the bill through the Senate. Not only is this not true, but it's a terrible way to negotiate. That is, if you want to actually do the right thing. Here's an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal to explain what I mean:
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) appears to have staked out a bargaining position that Senate Democrats should at least first try to pass the wage increase without the tax breaks. "Why do you need a tax break to do the right thing?" Mr. Rangel asked. "Maybe he (Sen. Baucus) doesn't have a strong feel for the depth of support that this bill has. ... I strongly disagree that this thing would be filibustered."
"Recently, the Fiscal Policy Institute released a study of the impact of higher minimum wages on small businesses. Their analysis focuses on various outcomes for businesses with less than 50 employees, comparing these outcomes between states with minimum wages above the Federal level and those at the Federal level. If the theory that higher minimum wages hurt small businesses is correct, then we would expect there to be less growth in such enterprises in states with higher minimum wages. In fact, the opposite is the case. Between 1998 and 2001, the number of small business establishments grew twice as quickly in states with higher minimum wages (3.1% vs. 1.6%). Employment grew 1.5% more quickly in high minimum wage states. Annual and average payroll growth was also faster in higher minimum wage states."
So let's review: Max Baucus, who comes from a state with some of the lowest wages in the country and that just overwhelmingly passed a minimum wage initiative, is using his position representing our state to attach corporate tax giveaways to a minimum wage bill - corporate tax giveaways that both endanger the bill's passage and that address a "problem" that data proves does not exist.
I encourage everyone to call Max Baucus's office and tell him this is absolutely unacceptable behavior. If you are in Montana, you can contact Max at (800) 332-6106. Otherwise, give him a ring at (202) 224-2651. Tell him to stop listening to K Street lobbyists and to stop reading their discredited talking points, and instead use his power that we the people of Montana gave him to support a clean minimum wage bill.
Dennis Rehberg doesn't like low-income folks. I think Rehberg's overpaid myself. Today, Rep. Dennis Rehberg was one of only 116 House members (the full House has 435 members) to vote against a hike in the minimum wage.
Nearly half the Republicans in the House supported the hike. 3/4 of Montanans supported the hike here in Montana.
But why vote your constituents when you can vote your contributors, right, Dennis?
The Hill is reporting that the Marianas will soon have a new minimum wage. That means an end to virtual slavery. And it's probably a first stop on the way to ending sex trafficking.
This is all thanks to the new Democratic Congress.
There's a couple small economic writings today that deserve to get a higher profile. Since I can't really raise their profile, I'll at least highlight them for you, dear readers.
Atrios notes that all of the Econ 101 trolls running around declaring that minimum wages are awful because an increase in price causes a decrease in quantity demand are, well, woefully underinformed. See, one of the underlying assumptions of this so-called law of demand is the existence of perfect competition. As Atrios notes, both theory and evidence indicate that labor markets are not perfectly competitive.
In fact, one of the other great economic myths indicates the extent to which the labor market isn't perfectly competitive.
