POWERFUL
REPORT SHOWS A FAIR MINIMUM WAGE IS GOOD FOR WORKERS,
BUSINESS AND OUR FUTURE
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Daniel Webster 212-870-2252, dwebster@ncccusa.org
New York, April 7, 2006—The minimum
wage has become a poverty wage instead of an anti-poverty
wage, with damaging ripple effects throughout
our economy, according to A Just Minimum
Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future,
a new report by Holly Sklar and Rev. Dr. Paul
Sherry that was released in support of the Let
Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign. The minimum
wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour since 1997
and buys less today than it did when Sam Walton
opened his first Walton’s 5 and 10 in 1951.
“It
would take more than $9 to match the buying power
of the minimum wage of 1968 and poverty rates
are higher now than in the 1970s,” said
Holly Sklar. “The United States is becoming
a downwardly mobile society instead of an upwardly
mobile society.”
A
Just Minimum Wage counters all the
arguments against raising the minimum wage and
offers vital new insight into why the minimum
wage is so important. The report shows that raising
the minimum wage is an economic imperative for
the enduring strength of our workforce, businesses,
communities and economy, as well as a moral imperative
for the very soul of our nation.
Some
of the major insights found in this important
report include:
•
A low minimum wage is a green light for miserly
employers to pay poverty wages to a growing share
of the workforce—not just workers at the
minimum, but above it. The minimum wage sets the
wage floor. As the floor has dropped below poverty
levels, millions of workers at and above the minimum
wage—just $10,712 a year—can’t
make ends meet.
•
Workers have not been getting their fair share
of the benefits of rising worker productivity.
The share of national income going to wages and
salaries is at the lowest level since 1929—the
year that kicked off the Great Depression. The
share going to after-tax corporate profits is
at the highest level since 1929.
•
Between 1968 (when the inflation-adjusted value
of the minimum wage was highest) and 2004, domestic
corporate profits climbed 85% while the minimum
wage fell 41% and the average hourly wage fell
4%, adjusting for inflation. In the retail sector,
which employs large numbers of workers at or near
minimum wage, profits rose 159% in the same period.
• Contrary to myth, the United States is
not becoming more competitive by taking the low
road. We are in growing debt to other countries,
have a huge trade deficit, hollowed-out manufacturing
base and deteriorating research and development.
Households have propped themselves up in the face
of falling real wages by maxing out work hours,
credit cards and home equity loans. This is not
a sustainable course. The low road is like a “shortcut”
that leads to a cliff.
•
The high road is not only the better road; it
is the only road for progress in the future. An
America that doesn’t work for working people
is not an America that works. We will not prosper
economically or ethically in the global economy
relying on low wages, outsourcing and debt in
place of innovation and opportunity. We will not
prosper in the global economy relying on disinvestment
in place of reinvestment. We can’t succeed
that way any more than farmers can “compete”
by eating their seed corn.
•
As Business Week put it in a special
issue on China and India, “China’s
competitive edge is shifting from low-cost workers
to state-of-the-art manufacturing. India is creating
world-class innovation hubs, and its companies
are far better performers than China’s.”
The United States will not succeed by shifting
increasingly from state-of-the art manufacturing
and world-class innovation hubs to low-cost workers.
Twenty
states (Arkansas is the latest to date) have raised
their state minimum wages above the federal level.
States with higher minimums have had better employment
trends, including for retail and small businesses
than those that have not. Successful businesses,
large and small, have shown that good wages are
good business because they lower turnover and
increase morale, productivity, quality, customer
satisfaction and consumer purchasing power.
“Paying
your employees well is not only the right thing
to do but it makes for good business,” Costco
CEO James Sinegal told Business Week.
“Fair wages are good for business,”
says Joel Marks, national director of the American
Small Business Alliance.
In
addition to the economic and business reasons
for raising the minimum wage, A Just
Minimum Wage also emphasizes the
moral and ethical reasons for doing so. According
to the report, the Golden Rule is the most universal
moral value: Do to others what you would have
them do to you.
Rev.
Dr. Paul Sherry said, “Violating the Golden
Rule, CEO pay has increased astronomically, while
a growing number of workers can’t make ends
meet. Violating the Golden Rule, Congress has
taken eight pay raises since 1997, while giving
none to minimum wage workers,” he said.
“As people of faith, we are committed to
justice and justice means raising the minimum
wage to a living wage.”
A
Just Minimum Wage makes clear: “Wages
are a bedrock moral issue. The minimum wage is
where society draws the line: This low and no
lower. Our bottom line is this: A job should keep
you out of poverty, not keep you in it.”
The
Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign
is composed of more than 60 faith and community
organizations who have joined together to raise
the minimum wage at the federal level and in states
such as Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky,
Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina,
Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. A Just
Minimum Wage was produced by the American
Friends Service Committee and the National Council
of Churches USA in support of the Let Justice
Roll Living Wage Campaign.
ABOUT
THE AUTHORS: Holly Sklar is a widely published
op-ed columnist and analyst whose books include
Raise The Floor: Wages and Policies That Work
For All Of Us and Streets of Hope: The
Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood. The
Rev. Dr. Paul H. Sherry is the coordinator of
the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign and
the former president of the United Church of Christ.
ABOUT
THE FOREWORD AUTHOR: The Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes
Jr., senior minister of The Riverside Church in
New York City, was recognized by Newsweek
as one of the 12 “most effective preachers”
in the English-speaking world.
Additional
Campaign information is online at www.letjusticeroll.org,
where you can download a PDF file of A Just
Minimum Wage. To arrange interviews with
the authors and request press or review copies,
please contact Daniel Webster, 212-870-2252 or
via email at dwebster@ncccusa.org.
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