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I found it
interesting that a well known European business guru hails the American
business model, but it’s not because of the institutionalism it’s because of
the inflow of new immigrants, allowing for a constant absorption of not just
new consumers but creators. Nordstom’s
opinions might be challenged here by the realities of suppressed wages in face
of rising cost of living, and the handicap the American economy has with its
failing privatized health care, never mind bankrupting policies of ideological,
unilateralist politicians. In hopes of
stirring some conversation these two are not a strong pairing, but the minimum
wage is a marker for economic growth and a ‘hot button’ politically. I know there are others with more input
who can contribute to this discussion. kwc “America is more an idea than a
country” http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/businessinsight/archives/2005/10/20/america_is_more_of_an_idea_than_a_country.html Senate declines to raise
the minimum wage from $5.15: Proposals by Kennedy, GOP both rejected
By Jim Abrams,
Associated Press, October 20, 2005 WASHINGTON -- Senate proposals to raise the minimum wage
were rejected yesterday, making it unlikely that the lowest allowable wage,
$5.15 an hour since
1997, will rise in
the foreseeable future. A
labor-backed measure by Senator Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, would have raised the minimum to $6.25
over an 18-month period. A Republican counterproposal would have combined the
same $1.10 increase with various breaks and exemptions for small businesses. The Kennedy amendment
to a spending bill went down 51 to 47, and the GOP alternative 57 to 42. Under
a Senate agreement, 60 votes were needed for approval. Kennedy said Hurricane
Katrina demonstrated the depth of poverty in the country. Making minimum wage, a single parent with
two children earns $10,700 a year, $4,500 below the poverty line.
He said it was ''absolutely unconscionable" that in the same period
that Congress has denied a minimum wage increase, lawmakers have voted
themselves seven pay raises worth $28,000. But Republican
opponents, echoing the arguments of business groups, said higher minimum wages
can work against the poor if they force small businesses to cut payrolls or go
out of business. ''Mandated hikes
in the minimum wage do not cure poverty and they clearly do not create
jobs," said Senator Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican who offered the Republican
alternative. Kennedy noted after
the vote that three of the four Republicans that supported his amendment --
Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island -- are up for reelection next
year. ''Candidates that are out campaigning
know the power of this issue," he said. The fourth Republican
supporting Kennedy was Senator Arlen Specter
of Pennsylvania. White House spokesman
Scott McClellan, asked yesterday about Kennedy's measure, said President Bush
''believes that we should look at having a reasonable increase in the minimum
wage. . . . But we need to make sure that, as we do that, that it is not a step
that hurts small business or prices people out of the job market." Enzi's proposal would
provide tax and regulatory relief for small business, permit tips to be
credited in complying with minimum wage hikes, and expand the small business
exemption from the Fair
Labor Standards Act. It also would have put into law a ''flextime" system, opposed by organized labor as an
assault on overtime pay, under which workers could work more in one week and
take time off the next. Both
proposals, amendments to a fiscal 2006 spending bill, needed 60 votes to pass. Kennedy, who has
campaigned relentlessly for a minimum wage increase, picked up one vote from
the 46 votes for a similar measure in March. On Tuesday he modified his
proposal, which had called for a $2.15 increase, in hopes of attracting more
Republicans. The first minimum wage
of 25 cents an hour was enacted under President Roosevelt in 1938. Congress has since voted eight times to
increase it, including under Republican presidents Eisenhower, Ford and George
H.W. Bush. Sixteen states and the
District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level |
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