Senator Warren: The Minimum Wage Should be $22/hour

When I first started seeing this headline the other day, I thought whoa, that's not possible. Doesn't Elizabeth Warren know that many people work for 20 years and never make $22 per hour? There are people who have never made more than $10 per hour in their entire lives!

Yes - yes, she knows. And she is making the case that asking Congress to raise the minimum wage to $10 and hour is perfectly reasonable, given inflation and the fact that it should actually be double that much if we lived in a fair society.

Will it happen? Maybe or maybe not, but at least Warren is there raising the right questions and using the right data.

Huffington Post:

"If we started in 1960 and we said that as productivity goes up, that is as workers are producing more, then the minimum wage is going to go up the same. And if that were the case then the minimum wage today would be about $22 an hour," she said, speaking to Dr. Arindrajit Dube, a University of Massachusetts Amherst professor who has studied the economic impacts of minimum wage. "So my question is Mr. Dube, with a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, what happened to the other $14.75? It sure didn't go to the worker."

And here she grills a restaurant owner who objects to any raise in the minimum wage, saying it would hurt sales. She points out that he would only have to raise prices on his menu 4-8 cents to make up the difference.

Romney Talks Down to The Help

Mitt Romney attended a ~ $50,000-a-plate dinner in Mississippi last night. No, I'm not kidding. But the main course turned out to be his own foot on a platter when he used the "help" as an object lesson for why he is the better candidate than Barack Obama. Unbelievable!

What he did wrong:
A) You don't rudely point at people and objectify their existence.
B) He could have addressed the servers are voters, but instead talked over their heads and never mentioned the words "minimum wage."
C) Can't stop acting like Mitt Romney for even one day.

Quotes Via the Atlanta Journal Constitution

"It's tough being middle class in America right now. The waiters and waitresses that come in and out of this room and offer us refreshments, they're not having a good year. The people of the middle class of America are really struggling. And they're struggling I think in a way because they're surprised because when they voted for Barack Obama...he promised them that things were going to get a heck a lot of better. He promised hope and change and they're still waiting."
". . . We’re accused, by the way — in our party — of being the party of the rich,” Romney told the crowd among the tinkling of glasses. “And it’s an awful moniker, because that’s just not true. We’re the party of people who want to get rich. And we’re also the party of people who want to care to help people from getting poor. We want to help the poor."

From the Jackson, Mississippi, Clarion Ledger

Many of the 300-plus attending were among the wealthiest in the state, and sprinkled among them were some of the state’s powerful political figures, including Gov. Phil Bryant and Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves.
U.S. Reps. Alan Nunnelee and Gregg Harper also were in attendance during Monday night’s event that raised over $1.7 million — with ticket prices set at $2,500, $10,000 or $50,000.

The presidential hopeful charmed the crowd, provoking more than one ovation (they already were all standing).
There were men and women dressed in cocktail attire — sharp suits and black dresses — accompanied by the traditional seersucker suit look that seems to always make its way into any formal Southern event.
One woman showed her enthusiasm by her bright pink outfit.

And once the speeches were made and the last glass of wine put down, the club cleared quickly. Even with the celebratory mood in the room, by the time 7 p.m. hit, the party was over. It was time to go home.