Minimum wage

Get out my BIG BOX of TIDE....my soapbox of choice!

I would love to initiate a question to about 100 people in the Cincinnati area. I wonder how many would know what the minimum wage is and how many would know what their congressman earns (I use the term "earn" loosely).

Here is a quote from an article and although this information is a few months old, I think it is interesting with the elections ‘round the corner:

By Lou Dobbs CNN
Wednesday, June 21, 2006;
"Without much fanfare, the House of Representatives last week (June, 2006) voted to give members of Congress yet another pay raise, as it has done almost every year for nearly a decade."
"For some reason, our elected officials decided against holding a news conference. Maybe that's because they didn't want to draw attention to the fact that they raise their own salaries almost every year while refusing to raise the pay of our lowest-paid workers."
“…since the last time Congress increased the minimum wage for our lowest-paid workers, (10 years!)buying power has fallen by 25 percent. Yet over that time our elected representatives have given themselves eight pay raises totaling more than 23 percent.”
“…..it's impossible to deny the national minimum wage of $5.15 is not enough for a family to live above the poverty line. The annual salary for workers earning the national minimum wage still leaves a family of three about $6,000 short of the poverty threshold. Raising the minimum wage to $7.50 would positively affect the lives of more than 8 million workers, including an estimated 760,000 single mothers and 1.8 million parents with children under 18. But even this 46 percent increase would get them only to the poverty line. Don't you think these families just might need that cost-of-living increase a bit more than our elected officials who are paid nearly $170,000 a year?" ~ Lou Dobbs

In 1951, a postage stamp cost 3 cents…now it’s 39 cents….
Minimum wage in 1955 was .75….now it’s $5.15 (federal guidelines…some states are different)
Should minimum wage keep pace with the cost of a stamp over 50 years?
The State of Washington has adopted it’s minimum wage to $7.63….Ohio is still at the federally endorsed $5.15.
Can YOU imagine not getting a pay raise in TEN YEARS??
Since economics is a common battleground, maybe we should give some thought to this topic.