A Living Wage?

Last week, the Chicago City Council passed a "Living Wage Act". This ordinance requires that "big box" retailers who make profits of over 1 billion dollars a year and who have stores of at least 90,000 square feet to pay wages of at least ten dollars an hour, plus another 3 dollars in fringe benefits to be implemented by 2010.

Opponents said that this measure would only cause retailers, such as Wal Mart, to simply abandon the city and to cancel any further development there. While this is no doubt true, there has to be a better solution than simply lying down and allowing such retailers to get richer and richer on the backs and sweat of poorly paid workers.

I was listening to talk radio, where the host and a caller were discussing this, both saying they "didn't blame" Wal Mart for abandoning such markets. No concern whatsoever was expressed for the thousands of workers presently being exploited for poverty wages by these greedy mega-retailers.

Well, I don't feel sorry for Wal Mart at all. After all, the company owes its success to its employees, without whom Wal Mart could not operate. This ordinance would not keep Wal Mart and other similar retailers from making a profit -- it would merely slow the rate down some and spread the wealth around more equitably within the company. They're in no danger of going out of business, so to hell with their "I want it all now" greed.

In related news, the House passed a bill for a minimum wage increase on Saturday. Good news? Well, it would have been, if not for the measure tacked on to the bill by House Republicans that would cut the inheritance tax on multimillion dollar estates.

Republicans have no interest in raising the minimum wage, but they know that Democrats won't vote to give rich people tax breaks, so if Democrats vote against the bill, the Republicans can paint Democrats as the bad guys for not voting for a measure that would help working people. They're also hoping that some Democrats will hold their noses and vote for it anyway, thus acheiving their goals of helping the rich get richer. In other words, the maneuver was aimed at defusing the minimum wage increase as a campaign issue for Democrats while using the popularity of the increase to achieve the Republican Party's goal of permanently cutting estate taxes

Thoughts?