The interesting issue for Tuesday

There will be no big surprises on the ballots Tuesday.  Except for the absence of a statement from Barbara Buono on the back, the sample ballot was the usual standard fare of people we know, people who don’t seem to have the faintest idea what a governor actually does, a few well-meaning but doomed candidates and the occasional nut case.

What is interesting on the ballot this year is the public question on the minimum wage.  I have to say here that I don’t have much sympathy for businesses who are against a minimum wage.  People who work 40 hours a week should be able to afford a decent place to live, enough to eat and maybe even drive a car once in a while.  $7.25 won’t cover that around here.  $8.25 isn’t much better but at least it’s an improvement.  As are including cost of living increases.  That’s an important idea and needs our support, why would we want to wait for an act of congress, or the legislature to catch up to the cost of living?  It’s not waiting for them.

There are quite a few of us running fryers or back pack blowers, laying patio bricks or loading trucks who are stuck in jobs that don’t pay above the poverty level.  Some business owners will cry the “Free market” and insist that the magical market will make everything fair.  I’ve heard that for the last 30 years and it doesn’t seem much fairer for me.  In fact the lack of a decent minimum wage is costing us all money.  

It might make a hamburger more expensive to pay a decent wage but it will mean that the poor slob who makes it won’t have to turn to public assistance to get enough for his or her family to eat.  We’re not talking about high school kids here either, the average age for minimum wage earners is 29.  How bright is that future when you’re 29, have four roommates, no car and work two jobs just to make ends meet?

Hard work and diligence are supposed to be part of the American dream, but I guess they weren’t thinking about those who toil for less than it takes to live.  It brings back the stories of the factory and farmworkers of the depression who died hungry, still owing the business they worked for.  Things have changed since then, we now have public assistance.  Now almost everyone can get enough to eat, businesses can make a profit and the rest of us get to pick up the tab.

Businesses who cant “afford” to pay a living wage, or pay their workers “under the table”  say they're making all our lives cheaper but they’re really not.  They’re cheating us for their own profit.  While most of us are working hard and playing by the rules they’re gaming the system, abusing both their employees and their customers.  First to complain about taxes and regulation these “entrepreneurs” are avoiding both and hoping we don’t notice the added cost to the rest of us.

They come in all shapes and sizes, from Walmart to sandwich shops and they profit mightily from the current “Employers market.”  It’s tough to find a job, and will continue to be for some time.  If you do get a job you’re very likely to find that it doesn’t pay all the bills, so it’s time to look for another, move in with your parents, friends or just live in your car.

Supporting a decent minimum wage and cost of living increases is something brand new on the political horizon.  NJ will be the first state to set-up fair cost of living increases, so I have hope that once again NJ will be a trend setter for fairness.  There is a lot of opposition in the business community which is why it’s on the ballot in the first place.  Even though it’s already passed in our legislature the governor wouldn’t sign it and turned it over to us.  That way we take the blame, and the glory.