Carol, as for the minimum wage, I think there are two good reasons for keeping it low. First of all, if the minimum wage is low it will be cheap for employers to hire. People who can't find a job any other way may find that an emplyer is willing to give them a chance if the pay they'll get is so low anyway. But if the minimum wage is raised, it's going to cost employers more to hire, and more of them may be unwilling to hire, and unemployment could rise. That would certainly not be a good thing, not for anybody.
The second benefit of a low minimum wage is that the goods and services produced by people earning the minimum wage will be cheap. It is going to be cheap for the rest of us to buy the stuff that the minimum earners produce. That is certainly very good for the rest of us, those of us who earn more than the minimum wage.
But for me, a left-wing person, a low minimum wage is nevertheless very problematical. Take a look at this picture from 'Västra Hamnen', a newly-built and uppity part of my hometown of Malmö. As you can see, lots of big rocks and boulders have been placed right next to the waterline. But if you look at this picture very closely, you may be able to see that some of the boulders, though none of the most nearby ones, look extremely smooth and shiny:
Rocks and boulders in \'Västra Hamnen\' How did some of the rocks get so shiny? Well, because they were ground and polished until they shone, of course. But here's the deal. They were not polished in Sweden, but in China. Take a look at this map of the world:
Map of the world Can you see Sweden, marked in purple in northern Europe? Well, the boulders in Västra hamnen were loaded onto a ship and brought by that ship to China, marked in yellow on that map. Can you imagine the cost and general bother of shipping those boulders all the way to China and back again? Just to have them ground and polished? Why couldn't we do that in Sweden instead?
Well, you guessed it. In Sweden, the people who do that sort of work cost too much, that is, their wages are 'too high'. Also, they have the right to all sorts of protection and good working conditions. Grounding and polishing rocks creates a lot of silicate dust, which clogs up and destroys people's lungs. Last year there was a documentary on Swedish television about workers who ground and polished rocks in China. Not only was their pay lousy, but almost all of them died in their fifties or earlier, because their lungs were clogged up with silicate dust.
Ah, but it was cheap for us to have those boulders polished. And the boulders do look pretty when they glitter and shine. So who cares about those Chinese workers and their clogged-up lungs? And who cares about those Swedish stone workers who remained umemployed while the Swedish boulders were being polished in China? It was a good deal for the rest of us Swedes.
I once saw a documentary about illegal immigrants picking oranges at an orange plantation in Florida. These workers were not given money in exchange for their work, but instead they were given tokens which they could use to buy goods in the store which was owned by the their employer. The documentary followed one of these workers, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, and kept check, more or less, on what he bought in that store. It wasn't very much. However, when the fruit-picking season was over, this worker ended up owing his employer about a thousand dollars! Yes, because the employer said that the worker had bought too much in the employer's store, so after working in the orange yard during the whole fruit-picking season the worker had not earned a cent, but instead he ended up being in debt!
Now you may point out that the worker in question was an illegal immigrant, and no one had forced him to make his way into the United States to work. That's a good point. But here's the deal. According to the documentary, most oranges in Florida are in fact picked by illegal immigrants, who earn next to nothing. And because these workers earn so little, or nothing at all, oranges that are sold all over the United States are cheap. If they had been picked by American workers earning the minimum wage, they would have been much more expensive. And if they had been picked by American workers earning 9.50, they would have been really very much more expensive.
Middle class people like you and me, Carol, benefit if poor people work for terribly low wages under terrible working conditions. Because the stuff we buy get cheaper that way. But can we be proud of ourselves for asking for the cheapest stuff, even if it gets that cheap only if it is produced by people earning hardly any money at all?
As for the economic difficulties of the middle class, remember that not all of it, and probably not most of it, has been caused by the poorest people, regardless of how you look at it. One reason for the current economic crisis is that so much money has been redistributed from low- and middle-income people to the very richest ones, who have become almost exponentially richer while the low-and middle-income people generally have become somewhat poorer. One thing that happened at the banks was that up to 50% of the banks' profits went into bonuses for its executives! The banks would certainly have been better off if most of their profits had been invested back into the banking business instead. By the way, I read in the New York Times (I know, I know...) that at least some banks planned to use their 'bailout money' not to give loans to people who needed it, but to buy other banks and give bonuses to their executives.
It's easy to blame poor people, but I think rich people have done more to create the economic downturn that we see today.
Ann
