Fair and Decent Payment

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt sent the Fair Labor Standards bill to Congress in 1938, it was accompanied by a note that emphasized the “fair” character of the new national standard, declaring that the standard in the United States was “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work” and added that “no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”

Today, a hard day of work does not pay a fair wage because a family cannot live in dignity on such a salary. And it is precisely because of this injustice that fast-food workers have declared a one-day strike for this Thursday in 100 U.S. cities. Their demands are not exorbitant; they are only asking for a small increase in their wages and better working conditions.

Fortunately, the plight of workers has led Senate Democrats to develop a bill that would increase the national minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10. The measure has been supported by President Barack Obama, who has warned that inequality and social immobility have posed a serious threat to everyone in the country for decades, not just for minorities.

Inequality between rich and poor is now nearly double that between whites and blacks. “The opportunity gap in America is now as much about class as it is about race, and that gap is growing,” Obama said in his speech to support raising the minimum-wage.

According to Pew Center surveys, inequality in the United States has been increasing since 1970 and has now reached a similar level to that in 1928. That year, one percent of the population captured 24 percent of the national income, while 90 percent were splitting 50 percent; in 1944, thanks to the forward-looking government of Roosevelt, the ratio changed and 1 percent of the population only captured 11 percent, while 90 percent were splitting 67.5 percent. By 2012, however, the 1 percent again received 22.5 percent of income and 90 percent split less than 50 percent.

To the shame of the world’s leading economic power, in the international arena the United States is in the third position below the average rate of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. At the national level, most Americans think it is unfair for employers to abuse their workers, for whom there is no other recourse than to take jobs that pay low wages.

The surveys cited in Professor Larry M. Bartel’s book, “Unequal Democracy,” show that support for raising the minimum wage oscillated between 60 and 70 percent between 1965 and 1975; today it is nearing 80 percent. Moreover, support does not diminish even when the interviewees are reminded that a higher minimum wage could mean job losses or higher prices.

The Republican majority in the House of Representatives opposes any increase in wages, arguing that it could have a negative effect on business — citing that as the cost of labor increases, employers will diminish the number of people they hire, a difficult argument to prove given the disparity in wages in the different states. Moreover, most economists convened by the Faculty of Business at the University of Chicago to analyze Present Obama’s proposal supported it and only 11 percent of them opposed it.

Beyond the data supporting the legitimacy of the struggle for a minimum wage increase, the reality of the situation of unskilled workers today is that if a father and mother in a family of four both earn minimum wage in the United States, the family earns an income that places them below the poverty line, and this is neither just nor decent.