A Hard Act to Follow . . .

. . . so I'll try to throw in something positive to that (though it will take me a minute to reach the upshot). Krugman did a fine job of addressing the structured decline in wages for working families here. The fact of the matter is, real wages have gone to shit in the last three decades. And it's not because workers are, by nature, dumb and lazy people*** who "need to get a better job," but rather due to economic policies that are an act of - and I will make no apology for using this term - class warfare. Deal with it.

Our minimum wage is a joke. No, wait, it isn't a joke, because when a full time worker lives well below an already ridiculous poverty line, as defined by the Fed. Govt., it's not god damn funny.

Uh, uh, but raising minimum wage is bad for business! No, it isn't. One thing we know is that if people have expendable income, they will rush out of bed on Saturday morning and buy whatever the fuck Target has on sale that day. Turning the almost-lumpen class into the consumer class is good for business. You can't have a business without customers. More customers = more profit. The word here is "sustainability." Further, to use a real-world example, compare Costco to Wal-Mart. Ethical arguments aside, living wages reduce turnover, create more productive workers, and are a long-term boon for businesses (even if said business depends on suburbanites thinking that a 20 pound block of cheese is a good deal while ignoring that 18 pounds of it will get green and fuzzy before they ever eat it).

For those of you who might argue that the only people who actually make minimum wage are middle class white kids saving for bling-bling wheels and a fart pipe for their Honda, shut the fuck up. You're wrong, and I won't legitimize your supposed rebuttal by answering it. I'll take the advice of Jebus on this and not cast my pearls before swine. Besides, you're probably the same people who fill up college seats because you had to earn an MBA just to figure out that revenue less cost equals profit, and I don't give a god damn if paying your employees a decent wage means you have to pass on new granite counter tops to replace the "no longer chic" Corian counters from 2000 and a Sub-Zero stainless steel fridge for another three months.

But I said I was going to be positive, so here goes. This article in The Nation reports that several states have increased minimum wage on their own:

"even if Congress continues to leave millions of working Americans in the lurch, the movement in states shows no signs of slowing down."

In all, the article says 12 states have decided to do the right thing and raise wages. What can we learn from this? While we certainly should not decline to fight the radical theocons in D.C. who are running this train full speed towards the abyss, let's not forget that sometimes, on some issues, our energy is better spent on more local levels. More immediate results can be made there.

Then again, if the Democratic Party wants to sling some balls (or, uh, labia) around to overthrow the coming aristocracy, they should run with this. Hell, if there's one thing that gets people interested, it's money.

***
For clarity's sake, in line with Josh's previous post, all people have a propensity towards laziness, and while evolution gave us all intelligence and we are not, therefore, dumb, some choose to remain ignorant, and this transcends class placement.