NYTs Balance on U.S. Minimum Wage

There is no shortage of numbers and studies detailing the widening gap between what American companies pay workers and the millions of dollars those same companies pay top executives.

… [A] report, by the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-leaning research center, and United for a Fair Economy, a group seeking to narrow the gap between rich and poor, found that in 2004 the ratio of C.E.O. pay to worker pay at large companies had ballooned to 431 to 1. If the minimum wage had advanced at the same rate as chief executive compensation since 1990, America's bottom-of-the-barrel working poor would be enjoying salad days, with legal wages at $23.03 an hour instead of $5.15.

… It would be nice to see corporate America put more effort - and money - into quality control and fair living wages for workers and less into exorbitant pay packages and bonuses for corporate chieftains.

Editorial. “Another Marie Antoinette Moment,” New York Times, 1/02/06.

… The last time the federal minimum wage was raised was in 1997 - when it was increased from $4.75 an hour. Since then, efforts in Congress to increase the amount have been stymied largely by Republican lawmakers and business groups who argued that a higher minimum wage would drive away jobs.

… Opinion polls show wide public support for an increase in the federal minimum wage, which falls far short of the income needed to place a family at the federal poverty level.

… Business groups and conservative economists have argued that the minimum wage is an unwarranted government intrusion into the employer-employee relationship and a distortion of the marketplace for labor. An increase in the minimum wage, they say, drives up labor costs [food, shelter, health care, security, etc. for workers] across the board [, reduces corporate profits and executive pay,] and freezes unskilled and first-time workers out of the job market.

… Advocates of an increase in the minimum wage said that inflation had so eroded the value of the minimum wage in the last nine years that it was worth less today in real terms than at any time since 1955. They also cited studies that found that raising the minimum wage did not cause job loss, as opponents argue. According to these studies, employers can absorb the higher labor costs through efficiencies, less employee turnover and higher productivity.

… Mr. Schwarzenegger said then that he believed that low-wage California workers deserved a raise, but said the legislation, which contained automatic increases tied to inflation, would be too costly to employers.

John M. Broder, “States Take Lead in Push to Raise Minimum Wage,” New York Times, 1/02/06.