A Decent Wage

Back when desperate Americans were willing to work for nickels, Congress approved the nation’s first minimum wage, a quarter an hour. The Fair Labor Standards Act guaranteed the 25-cent wage in 1938 during the Great Depression. The pay allowed a working man to support his family with dignity.

Working men and women deserve a fair and decent minimum wage today. The minimum wage is $3.35-an-hour; it has not been raised for seven years although the price of just about everything else has gone up. An increase is long overdue.

A bill sponsored by Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins, (D-Los Angeles) would raise the wage incrementally to $5.05 as of Dec. 31, 1991. Action is finally expected during the first week of May. Congress should approve it quickly.

A paycheck based on an hourly rate of $5.05 would amount to $202 for a 40-hour week. That might not sound like much, but it would be enough to nudge a family of three above the poverty mark. The larger paycheck, worth more than a welfare check in small households, would also provide a greater incentive for working. And, a respectable raise would make up for the loss in buying power during the years when prices rose but the minimum wage remained miserly low.

The $5.05 rate is unpopular with Republicans and some conservative Democrats; their opposition has been strengthened by a controversial report from the Congressional Budget Office. The nonpartisan CBO reports that the $5.05 rate could lead to the loss of jobs and higher prices, arguments long embraced by the Reagan Administration. Those arguments may prove true in some cases, but the bottom line must be based on fairness.

The Fair Labor Standards Act guaranteed Americans a minimum and decent standard of living 50 years ago. Since that legislation was approved, Congress has only seen fit to raise the minimum wage 15 times. Americans, who work for the nation’s minimum wage, deserve a reasonable raise every year not only when politics allows.

Nearly 7 million Americans earn the minimum wage. A quarter of them are heads of households, and one-tenth are sole breadwinners, according to estimates made by an independent commission. In millions of homes, minimum wages guarantee only poverty. Congress can guarantee dignity by providing a raise that is long overdue.