MINIMUM WAGE
In a clear sign that the effort to raise the minimum wage to keep more working families out of poverty is picking up steam, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts has recently pledged to introduce a bill raising the minimum wage to $9.50 in 2009. Congressman George Miller of California has pledged to introduce a simliar bill in the House. Presidential candidate John Edwards had previously pledged to seek to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 in 2012.In both 2006 and 2007, I introduced a proposal in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives calling for an increase in Pennsylvania's minimum wage to $8.15 in 2008, $8.75 in 2009, and $9.35 in 2010, with annual cost of living increases thereafter. I felt Pennsylvania's increase to $7.15 this year, which I had initiated following similar action by the New York legislature, was too little, too late despite being a big improvement over the former status quo.The Kennedy announcement is of major significance. It places pressure on all Democratic Presidential candidates to make raising the minimum wage to over $9.00 an hour an important campaign issue. It strengthens efforts in state legislatures around the country to make further minimum wage increases. In increases the likelihood of referendum questions raising the minimum wage on many state ballots.And for the first time in many years, Democrats in Congress will be advocating a higher minimum wage than currently exists in any state--a good development for both low wage workers and those who favor a vigorous use of federal power to solve urgent federal problems.
Reasonable minimum wage increases do not cause inflation. This is because at any given point there are more jobs available at given wages than people willing to fill the jobs at these wages, and there is more money being spent--via credit cards, revolving lines of credit, easy payment terms and other debt instruments--then there is money being earned. And the vast majority of workers at any given time earn far more than the minimum wage, whatever the minimum is.In the first six months of 2007, for instances, states across the country, including Pennsylvania, raised the minimum wage. Pennsylvania's minimum wage, during this period, went up from $5.15 an hour to $6.25 an hour.Today's August 1, 2007 Wall Street Journal reports on the economic activity during these six months: the article on page two is headlined "Why Inflation Fears Are Easing" and is subtitled "Spending Rate Ebbs, Wage Growth Slows; A Drag From Housing."The article noted that the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation measure, the price index for personal consumption expenditures excluding food and energy, rose 0.1% in June and was up 1.9% from a year earlier, according to the U. S. Commerce Department. This was the statistic's lowest point since March 2004.The Labor Department said its employment cost index rose o.9% in the second quarter, up slightly from 0.8% in the first quarter. Benefits costs increased 1.3% after a first quarter gain of 0.1%. Growth in wages and salaries slowed to 0.8% in the second quarter from 1.1% in the first quarter. (The slightly greater wage growth in the first quarter, I would guess, could be due in part to minimum wage increases taking effect then.)But the Conference Board's consumer confidence measure soared in July, 2007 to its highest reading since August, 2001. The business group's index rose to 112.6, up from 105.3 in June. (I would guess that the minimum wage increases, generally taking effect in January and July helped boost this rating, which is based on public opinion polls.)"Much of the improvement in the Conference Board's survey," Wall Street Journal reporter Sudeep Reddy reports, "reflects a sharp increase in the number of people reporting jobs to be plentiful. It is the latest sign that strong job growth and a low 4.5% unemployment rate are keeping the economy relative strong despirte forecasts of a decline in the job market."Consumer spending rose 0.1% in June before inflation, "the smallest increase since September" of 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported. "(R)ecord gasoline prices weighed heavily on consumers, the Commerce Department said yesterday. Adjusted for inflation, spending was flat. Personal income rose 0.4% and the saving rate nudged up to 0.6% from the previous month's 0.4%."More and more people are recognizing the difference between the theories of economists and the reaction of the economy to the complex world in which we live. In the real world, reasonable increases in the minimum wage do not produce inflation because of their smallness in the economy and the offsetting positive things they bring to the economy in terms of filling of job vacancies that otherwise go begging, increased productivity, debt repayment, increased tax revenues, reduction of increases in welfare costs, increased consumer confidence, increased investment in education, etc.
August 1, 2007
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=543996#post543996
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One reason for the continued increases in minimum wage rates to match increases in inflation is that minimum wage increases are generally followed by declines in unemployment.In Pennsylvania, for instance, in the first six months of the year, unemployment fell to 3.8% as the minimum wage rose from $5.15 to $6.25. More people are willing to work at low wage jobs when the pay goes up, so there are fewer vacancies there and turnover declines.An individual employer might hesitate to raise his own employees' wages because of fears of a competitive disadvantage. But, if all wages are going up, then he gets the benefit of lower turnover and more motivated workers.EITC increase fans should keep in mind that tax dollars fund the EITC and it costs the state money. Increasing the minimum wage generates additional state, local, and federal tax dollars.In an analagous situation, the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association is now backing a statewide smoking ban in restaurants. If it passes, individual restaurants will not be penalized by customers visiting their competitors, and they will gain the benefits of greater appeal to non-smokers. A restaurant owner today strongly pleaded with me to back the ban because of such concerns.
July 10, 2007
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=527642#post527642
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In proposing a federal minimum wage of $8.00 in 2010, $8.75 in 2011, and $9.50 in 2012, with annual cost of living increases thereafter, 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards became the first national figure to endorse a minimum wage of over $9 an hour.Edwards' proposal is similar to one that I made in the Pennsylvania legislature in 2006, and I reintroduced this year. My proposal raises Pennsylvania's current $7.15 minimum wage to $8.15 in 2008, $8.75 in 2009, and $9.35, with increases annually based on the cost of living. Assuming a 3% annual inflation rate in 2010 and 2011, Pennsylvania's mimum wage under my proposal would hit $9.63 in 2011 and $9.92 in 2012.Both Edwards and I seek to raise the minimum wage in the early years of our proposal above the rate of inflation in order to help get minimum wage recipients with two dependents out of poverty for the first time since the Reagan Administration began stalling minimum wage increases to allow the minimum wage to be repealed by predictable inflation over time.Contrary to the hysteria generated by minimum wage increase opponents, raising the minimum wage more frequently reduces unemployment than increases it. That is because many low wage jobs go vacant for periods of time, as potential applicants weigh the costs of transportation, clothing, food, and time associated with working, and conclude that low wage jobs are not worth taking. Upping the starting salaries brings more people into the workforce, and keeping salaries going in an upward direction keeps them there.Giving low income workers more money increases the economic viability of many stores with a large urban clientele, boosts the economy in general, and gives the Social Security system more money for future payouts.My hope is that Edwards' proposal will lead other Democratic Presidential candidates, Congressmen, and Senators to either back his proposal or issue their own proposals. The more national figures talk about raising the minimum wage to over $9 an hour, the easier it will be to mobilize both the grassroots and the netroots behind such a campaign.The recent Congressional increase--to $5.85 later this month, $6.65 next year, and $7.25 in 2009--was too little, too late for the vast majority of low wage workers in America. Vigorous state actions in Pennsylvania and most other states had greatly limited the effects of this increase, both in terms of the number of people affected and the degree to which they were affected. While the increase to $7.25 in 2009 was certainly better than doing nothing, it was not a very strong use of federal power.I hope that the Edwards proposal will prove to be a constructive start towards mobilizing the Democratic leadership, organized labor, the grassroots and the netroots, behind continued minimum wage increases in the interests of preventing human suffering and reducing economic injustices.
July 3, 2007
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=522765#post522765
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Congressional Democrats rightly killed--at least for the time being--the Republican bid to take a watered down version of the Congressional Democrats' watered down minimum wage bill and trade it for massive long term tax breaks heavily targeted at the wealthiest Americans.
But, in doing so, they have opened themselves up to charges that they are not really for a minimum wage increase.
The best way to rebut this canard to come out for a much higher minimum wage bill than the inadequate one now before Congress in a desperate bid to gain Republican support. Massive state action around the country has given the Congressional Democrats the lever they need to regain control of this issue and a chance to meaningfully improve the lives of millions of Americans.
August 6, 2006
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Anybody who believes that minimum wage increases actually cost jobs should provide a link to a story or a posting documenting that somehwere in the United States a company ACTUALLY HAS laid off people as a result of a minimum wage increase. There certainly are very few such companies, if, indeed, any exist anywhere.The fact is that when the United States first started establishing minimum wage standards in the 1930's there were over 30 million non-agricultural jobs in the U.S. and today there are over 140 million non-agricultural jobs in the U.S. Raising minimimum wages is one of the components of growing economies in the U.S. and around the world.
August 6, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=297912#post297912
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My goal is meet the traditional standard of the minimum wage before the Reagan Admistration: enough money for a full-time minimum wage worker to support two dependents without being in poverty.That would require at least $8.25 an hour in 2007, with cost of living increases thereafter.No state in the country is yet at that level,and the propoosed federal bill is not at that level, so achieving it would require increases above the rate of inflation until we get there. I am introducing a bill raising Pennsylvania's minimum wage to $8.15 in 2008, $8.75 in in 2009, and $9.35 in 2010. That might get us there, but it whether it does or not depends upon the rate of inflation.There is a lot of gnashing of teeth about the reluctance of young people to marry, the attractiveness of violent and illegal street culture to minority youth, men who do not take responsibility for their children born either in marriage or out of wedlock, and men who who decline to take advantage of educational opportunities to the extent that far more women than men now attend and graduate from college.Of course, there are character issues involved here, but there also are issues of lack of money. By moving to re-establish unskilled work as a source of enough money to keep one out of poverty, we are making it easier to solve many other societal problems.
August 5, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=297607#post297607
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Raising the minimum wage cuts turnover and training costs and increases the number of cutomers. The business with the three diswashers should generate extra revenue from having more customers, and should reduce costs by not having to run some ads for more workers, not having to supervise the training of some workers, not having breakage from inexperienced workers, not having theft from short term workers with little loyalty to the company, etc.
August 5, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=297511#post297511
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The unanimous vote by the Massachusetts House and Senate to override Governor Mitt Romney's veto of minimum wage legislation making Massachusetts the first state to set a statutory wage of $8 (in 2008) sends a strong national message that the battle to raise the minimum wage over the poverty level still continues to gather momentum.
The House vote was 152 to 0, and the Senate vote was 38 to 0. "For those of us that care about the minimum wage, it's simply an issue of fairness, of economic justice," said Senator Mark R. Pacheco (D-Taunton), the chief sponsor of the Senate bill that originally, before being watered down, sought to raise the minimum wage to $8.25 in 2008 with an annual COLA thereafter. See http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/08/01/minimum_wage_hike...
The Governor's press secretary Eric Fehrnstrom assailed "an increase that substantially exceeded the rate of inflation...that was too much, too fast."
August 1, 2006
http://state-rep-mark-cohen-dem-pa.dailykos.com/user/state%20rep%20mark%20cohen%20dem%20pa/diary/3
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Republicans who expected Congressional Democrats to quickly roll over and accept massive tax subsidies for corporations and very wealthy individuals are facing a new reality that they do not appear to have considered: the fact that 22 states have already raised the minimum wage for all workers, and two others have raised it for public employees.
The 22 states represent nearly 60% of the people in the United States, and include the vast majority of Democrats in both the House and the Senate. These states are joined by five additional states that will have minimum wage questions on the ballot in November, and many other states that can reasonably be expected to raise the minimum wage following the November elections.
For prime sponsor Ted Kennedy in the Senate, for instance, a federal minimum wage increase to $7.25 an hour in 2009 will have no effect on his constituents if the Massachusetts legislature, as expected, overrides the veto of Governor Mitt Romney and raises the minimum wage to $8 an hour in 2008.
July 29, 2006
http://state-rep-mark-cohen-dem-pa.dailykos.com/user/state%20rep%20mark%20cohen%20dem%20pa/diary/3
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Republicans in Congress are now on the verge of agreeing to Democratic demands that they increase the minimum wage to $7.25. The immediate debate is about what gifts to business interests, if any, should be added to the minimum wage package.
But this ongoing debate is not the most important one we should be having. The most important debate we should be having is how we get minimum wage workers out of poverty.
$7.25 an hour is still a poverty wage. That statement is not just rhetoric. At 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, $7.25 an hour amounts to $15,080. The current poverty level for a family of three is $16,600.
July 28, 2006
http://state-rep-mark-cohen-dem-pa.dailykos.com/user/state%20rep%20mark%20cohen%20dem%20pa/diary/3
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Governor Ed Rendell signed the minimum wage increase into law at about 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, July 9, 2006, at the Sharon Baptist Church--a beautiful complex located on the 3900 Block of Conshocken Avenue, near Ford Street.There was a lot of credit to go around for this historic accomplishment, and many speeches were made. In my speech, I called for an $8 minimum wage for 2008. I was pleased to see Rendell leading the applause.
July 10, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=278514#post278514
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I did study economics, both as an undergraduate taking courses offered at the Wharton School and, to a lesser degree, as an MBA student. I know enough economics to know that much of economics is based on theoretical models and not what really happens. Theoretical economics models do predict job losses following passage of minimum wage legislation. Actual experience, however, shows that job gains follow as more people are drawn into the work force and job turnover at jobs held by unskilled workers and inexperienced workers greatly declines.I studied political science at a time when the idea that the study of how political actors actually behave was gaining on the idea that theoretical models should dominate analysis. Since then, the study of how people actually behave--its advocates are called behavioralists--has dominated political science. Unfortunately, the economics profession--generally tied in with schools of business with funding dependent on the good will of corporate leaders--has not had a change in direction of a similar magnitude.One famous example of why this is the case was provided by the Wharton School when it fired Economics Professor Scott Nearing during the presidential administration of Woodrow Wilson for--first among a variety of sins--publicly advocating minimum wage increases. Nearing lived to be nearly 100, became a leading advocate of, and best-selling author about, small-scale farming who developed a widespread folllowing, and visited Penn occasionally as a lecturer. I heard him speak in the late 1960's, and Penn finally at a public ceremony officially apologized for the firing and made Nearing a Professor Emeritus in the 1970's.
July 10, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=278504#post278504
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Earlier this year, after it became clear that cost of living increases for minimum wage workers would not be part of any minimum wage increase passed this year, I introduced legislation raising the minimum wage to $8 in 2008. Under legislation to be signed into law by Governor Rendell on Sunday, July 9, 2006, Pennsylvania's minimum wage will hit $7.15 on July 1, 2007 for employers of 11 or more people, and will hit $7.15 on July 1, 2008 for all other employers.I picked the $8 in 2008 figure because it seemed to be the direction that other states were heading. Massachusetts becomes the first state to statutorily hit that figure when House and Senate negotiators agreed on it on July 5, 2006.The Massachusetts Senate has already passed that proposal, and the House is due to vote on it Monday, July 10, 2006. It is unclear whether Governor Romney will sign the measure--my feeling is that he will--but in any case the legislature "has consistently overridden his vetoes" and seems certain to do so again.Other states states likely to hit $8 in 2008 given current inflationary trends include three states with statutory cost of living increases for minimum wage workers: Washington State (now at $7.63), Oregon (now at $7.50), and Vermont (now at $7.25).In California, Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature are haggling over the merits of $7.75 with a cost of living increase and $7.75 without a cost of living increase; my guess is that if a compromise is reached it will be at least $8 with no cost of living increase. If no compromise is reached, California voters will likely approve a referendum giving $7.75 in 2007 and annual cost of living increases thereafter.For the Massachusetts story, see:http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/2007/legislature_agrees_to...
July 7, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=277778#post277778
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The United States has had more than 100 years of experience with state and federal minimum wage laws. With all that experience, and with business lobbying against the Pennsylvania minimum wage increase that will be signed into law by Governor Rendell on Sunday afternoon, July 9, 2006 at the Sharon Baptist Church on Conshocken Avenue, no one cited any actual experience of anyone who had ever lost his or her job as a result of a minimum wage increase in any public forum of which I am aware.I do not assert that there is no such person in American history. But the ever-rising levels of employment in this country--and in states that raise the minimum wage higher than the national average--demonstrate that this is not a significant problem.The studies that have been done against the minimum wage are all or virtually all theoretical. They are based on economic models which provide estimated effects based on given assumptions. In 1988, I succeeded in getting Pennsylvania to raise the minimum wage from $3.35 to $3.70. I would have preferred a larger minimum wage increase, but this was all Senate Republicans would agree to. New Jersey kept its wage at $3.35.Two Princeton economists, Card and Kreuger, tired of studies based on economic models, decided to compare employment change in Pennsylvania and New Jersey after Pennsylvania's minimum wage law took effect. Under the economic models, Pennsylvania should have lost jobs as a result of raising the minimum wage. Employers should moved jobs to New Jersey.Instead, in the real world, what happened was Pennsylvania not only gained jobs, but gained jobs faster than New Jersey. Pennsylvania's minimum wage appeared to be a modest stimulator of job growth, rather than a cause of job decline.On Wednesday, July 5, 2006, I attended a public hearing called by Senators Arlen Specter and Ted Kennedy at the Constitution Center to discuss prospective changes in immigration law. A good number of witnesses testifed to the effect that they could not fill job vacancies with American workers. In seeking an appropriate balance between the interests of business and American workers, both Specter and Kennedy have supported an amendment to current law requiring employers to pay at least the wages offered under the Davis-Bacon Act to workers before finding that there are no Americans willing to take the job.It is hardly an original observation on my part that raising wages attracts more people to the workforce and creates greater employee loyalty. As a consumer, I have heard supervisors apologize for poor service in restaurants and retail establishments on the ground that they cannot get workers to fill available positions. The conservative critique of the welfare system is based in significant measure on the belief that some people will stay out of the work force if their benefits are close to the salaries they would earn.I believe the growth in jobs found by Card and Kreuger--and by other studies cited by the Keystone Research Center that followed the Card and Kreuger research design to various degrees--is due largely to the attraction of additional workers to fill vacancies. When workers enter the workforce, of course, the frequent pattern is that their salaries improve over time, increasing dramatically the difference between work and governmental benefits.If economic distress had followed past minimum wage increases, there would not be over 80% approval for minimum wage increases, including over 70% approval among Republicans. There would not be findings from pollsters that approval of minimum wage increases by legislative bodies leads to even greater support for them--over 90% support in some states.What the vast majority of people do with pay raises is spend it to meet their most urgent needs. For minimum wage workers, that is supporting their families, meeting the demands of creditors, and saving to pay for college or trade school education. If there is a study to the contrary, I have not seen it or heard of it.As to my belief that a higher minimum wage deters crime, it comes from conversations with police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges--many of whom matter of factly point out that the vast majority of criminals are perennially unemployed. As minimum wage increases attracts new people into the workforce, they lower the pool of potential criminals. Obviously, personal character counts. Some unemployed people have rigid integrity and would rather starve than violate the law. Some employed people are greedy and contemptuous of the law. But character is influenced--but not controlled--by circumstance. People who commit crimes can often come up with witnesses and evidence to testify to their sterling character. It is precisely because of this that state and federal laws provide for minimum sentences upon conviction for most crimes.Minimum wage increases are certainly not a cure-all for the problems of society. But they are a rare governmental program that generates more revenue than costs, and that has overwhelming support among voters of both parties.
July 6, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=276670#post276670
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The only person who asked me to introduce a minimum wage increase bill before I did so was a Temple University college student. Long before the Inquirer and Daily News endorsed a minimum wage increase, the Temple News endorsed it enthusiastically.A leading longtime opponent of the minimum wage increases, Temple Professor William Dunkelburg, who has an active consulting business for corporate clients, noted in his testimony before the state senate--in a public hearing held at Temple with a good number of Temple students in attendance--that most of his students work full-time to pay their tuition.(The average full professor at Temple earns $104,000 a year from academic duties alone.)The minimum wage might not be a widespread University of Pennsylvania or Drexel issue, but it is clearly a widespread Temple or Community College of Philadelphia issue. Even for students who receive some parental help, the amount of wages they can earn may determine whether college education , or full-time college education, is feasible at any given time period.When I went to college (the University of Pennsylvania, Class of 1970) a Penn State or Temple student could pay his her entire annual tuition by working over the summer full time and earning the minimum wage. Before the new Pennsylvania legislation takes effect, even working full time at the minimum wage 52 weeks a year is not enough to pay one's tuition. Five or six year undergraduate stays are becoming more common than four year undergraduate stays as a result.I was fortunate to have parents affluent enough to pay all my college tuition and most of my living expenses. I was able to graduate college slightly in the black. Today, the average debt is approaching $20,000 for a college graduate. More and more college graduates are reaching $50,000 in debts. This often will have serious long-term effects on the quality of their lives, especially as Congress last year made it much tougher to declare bankruptcy.One interesting fact is that graduates of private colleges are significantly less likely to earn graduate degrees than graduates of state colleges. Part of that may be due to a private college degree being worth more, but part of it is also due to private college students and their families are more likely to be tapped out.
July 6, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=276919#post276919
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With House and Senate passage of identical language raising the minimum wage in Pennsylvania on June 30, 2006 and July 1, 2006, and Governor Rendell's promise to sign the bill into law, passage of the minimum wage law will soon be history.It will be history that all Democrats and many Republicans can be proud of. The Pennsylvania legislature has decisively acted to give struggling Pennsylvanians the same economic rights as their fellow citizens have in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Alaska--although, due to Republican insistence, on a slower timetable.All Pennsylvanians working for an employer with 11 or more full-time employees, or their part-time equivalents, will hit the $7.15 target on July 1, 2007. The minimum wage will hit $6.25 an hour on January 1, 2007 for those employers in this category.For those emplyers with 10 or fewer full-time employees or their part-time equivalents, the minimum wage hits $5.65 an hour on January 1, 2007, $6.65 an hour on July 1, 2007, and $7.15 on July 1, 2008.The effect of this legislation is to give about 423,000 economically struggling Pennsylvanians hundreds of millions of dollars in extra buying power. This will lead to a reduction of debt, greater participation in the workforce, and greater ability to support one's family and save for college.This legislation does not, howwever, meet the ultimate goal of allowing a full-time wage earner to support two dependents and not be under the federally defined poverty line. One who works 52 weeks a year, forty hours a week, will earn all of $290 per week, or $14,980 a year. The federal poverty level now is $16,600 for a person with two dependents, and it will undoubtedly rise in 2007 and 2008.I am therefore on developing a campaign for legislation I have already introduced raising the minimum wage to $8 in 2008, with annual cost of living adjustments geared to the federal poverty level. My hope is that we will be able to get ahead of the curve on inflation and join other states clearly headed in the direction of $8 a year in the minimum wage: so far California, Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, Vermont, and Conneticut, with many more likely to follow.I began working on raising the minimum wage in Pennsylvania in 1987, when the minimum wage was $3.35. I got the first minimum wage increase in Pennsylvania history enacted in 1988, a 9% increase to $3.65.With the passage of the 39% increase this year, we have now raised the Pennsylvania minimum wage by 113% over an 19 year period--very good, but not quite the equal of inflation.The Philadelphia Unemployment Project the AFL-CIO and many House and Senate members have been solid long-term partners for meaningful change. I look for these efforts to continue so that we can re-establish the principle that full-time workers should not live in poverty.
Philadelphia tomorrow can be much more than it is today. We can get our variegated neighborhoods together with governmental and economic interests to create a future that will grow our city and enrich our lives.
July 3, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?t=20594
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A higher minimum wage will not bring back the railroads, or the coal fields, or the oil fields, of any of the other bases of Pennsylvania's 19th and 20th century economy that have been depleted, moved, or outsourced.What a higher minimum wage does is it attracts people to the workforce, reduces job turnover, training costs, and unpaid debts. It makes it possible for more people to graduate from low and moderate cost colleges.It reduces child poverty. It gives good and rational people in desperate economic circumstances a stronger alternative to the drug trade and other illegal activities. It gives senior citizens-- and homemakers with little work experience-- a chance to make some extra money to support their families.Within Pennsylvania, it adds hundreds of millions of dollars of buying power to low-income citizens. It gives them the incentives and the resources to meet obligations, pay debts, and save small amounts of money for the future.It does this while generating extra revenues for the Social Security system, federal, state, and local governments. It is bottom-up economics instead of the usual top-down economics.Before the federal first raised the minimum wage in the 1930's, there were over 30 million jobs in the United States. Today, many minimum wage increases later, there are over 140 million jobs in the United States. The idea that the minimum wage increases lead to the elimination of jobs has no basis whatsoever in reality, except to an extremely small degree for the most enonomically marginal of enterprises.
July 2, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=275223#post275223
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The imminent enactment of by far the largest minimum wage increase in Pennsylvania legislative history--a raise nearly four times the old record in percentage terms and nearly seven times the old record in dollars unadjusted for inflation--will owe its success to a variety of factors.First, the $5.15 minimum wage figure had been virtually repealed by inflation as a meaningful figure. A single person with no dependents and no outside support who worked 52 weeks a year at that level would be in poverty. It was not only not a family supporting wage; it was not an individual supporting wage. Fewer people were working at that level, and it was clear that the figure would soon become completely meaningless.Second, there was a record national effort to raise the minimum wage. In the late 1980's, I had led an effort to help sell the AFL-CIO and my fellow legislators on the need for national state by state efforts to raise living standards. Both the AFL-CIO and virtually all national progressive organizations in general had seen national campaigns solely as a vehicle for organizing pressure on the federal government.My efforts and those of my legislative allies in other states bore fruit slowly. We were quickly able to put together on a shoestring a national organization of labor-oriented legislators, and get a committee of the National Conference of State Legislatures formed to focus on labor-related issues. (I was the Treasurer of the organization, now called the National Labor Caucus of State Legislators, in its first incarnation, and am on the Executive Board of it's current incarnation. I received an award from NCSL for my leadership in forming the NCSL Labor Committee in December, 1992.)We got labor leaders to attend NCSL meetings in significant numbers for the first time, to learn about what was happening in other states, to meet with legislators from around the country, and to meet with their counterparts representing the business community. Statewide AFl-CIO'sformed a national organization of their own, Worker's Voice, which holds annual meetings before NCSL meetings in the city in which the NCSL convention is held. Active legislators and leaders of other national and state organizations are also invited to attend.When Massachusetts got out of the gate early and raised the minimum wage to $6.75 in 2001, there already was an embyonic national infrastructure in place to match or exceed that figure in other states. Before Pennsylvania finally passes the minimum wage, 20 other states have passed a meaningful minimum wage increase (the state of Washington is now the highest at a current $7.63, with a COLA due in January), and West Virginia had passed an increase to $7.15 that applied to only a few people.The effect of all this is it killed the argument that Pennsylvania would be at a competitive disadvantage by raising the minimum wage. Already a majority of the country's population is covered by a higher minimum wage, and it is absolutely clear that a majority of the states will pass a higher minimum wage by the end of 2006, and many more states will pass a higher minimum wage in 2007 and 2008. The national minimum wage increase effort now extends to at least 47 states, with additional successes in Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia and a likely further success in Guam.Third, the organizing efforts of the Minimum Wage Coalition, the AFL-CIO and some of its affiliated unions, the non-AFL-CIO Pennsylvania State Education Association, and various organizations originating from the 2004 Presidential campaign were helpful in demonstrating that the issue had widespread support and that the consistent polling figures of over 80% public support throughout the country demonstrated a constituency that was both informed and mobilizable.Fourth, Governor Rendell and Democratic leaders Bill DeWeese and Mike Veon deserve tremendous credit for keeping this issue in the public forefront through a steady drumbeat of public statements and endless rallies. Their efforts were indispensable in elevating raising the minimum wage from an effort supported by the vast majority of Democratic legislators to an effort supported by every single Democratic legislator and viewed as a top priority by the vast majority of Democratic legislators.Fifth, the wall of media silence and opposition was pierced. The Inquirer and Daily News, the Allentown Morning Call, and a few other papers at least voiced some support for raising the minimum wage. While the vast majority of the newspapers in Pennsylvania were either silent or opposed--and the papers that supported it clearly lacked any great enthusiasm for the cause--the limited support that was given was far more than had ever been given before.Sixth, the Keystone Research Center was very helpful in coming up with useful facts--such as the fact that the percentage of minimum wage workers was highest in rural Republican areas, which they helpfully provided county by county breakdowns to prove.There certainly are other issues that the same forces can address, such as improving the availability of health care coverage. I would hope, though, that continued effort is made to follow the leadership of California, Massachusetts and other states, which are seeking a minimum wage that will lift a family of three out of the poverty level. The Democrats are going to make major gains in the 2006 elections, and we should not be satisfied with the minimum wage levels we have achieved with a Republican House and a Republican Senate.
June 29, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=274104#post274104
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Agreement has been reached between leaders of the House and Senate on a schedule to raise the minimum wage in Pennsylvania.On Friday, June 30, the House will vote for the bill that the Senate passed, with very minor technical amendments, raising the minimum wage to $7.15 for all Pennsylvanians by July 1, 2008, and for the vast majority of Pennsylvanians by January 1, 2008. My original target had been to hit the $7.15 figure by January 1, 2007 and House Republicans had supported hitting it by July 1, 2007.After the House passes the bill, the Senate will pass it as amended either on Friday, June 30 or Saturday, July 1. The bill will then be sent to the Governor, who will sign it.I believe this 39% increase in the minimum wage over a two year period is a great victory for the people of Pennsylvania and for all of those who worked hard to achieve it. It is the highest percentage minimum wage increase in the history of Pennsylvania state government, and is one of the highest statutory figure percentage increases in the history of any state government.It is not enough, however, to get a minimum wage worker with two dependents out of poverty. I have already introduced additional legislation raising the minimum wage to $8 effective January 1, 2008, with indexing to the federal poverty level each year thereafter. I will continue to work in the Pennsylvania legislature, and with legislators and minimum wage campaign leaders in other states, to move us closer to the day when no American working a 40 hour work week is in poverty.
June 29, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=273821#post273821
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College students all over America are now planning where they will be going in late August or early September. For those who have already settled on their choice, the planning is relatively easy.For the many students who have been accepted at two or more colleges they are interested in attending, and are still uncertain, the decision process has many elements. What courses are to be offered? What athletic programs? What living arrangements? What financial aid packages? And how much money can be earned to pay the costs of tuition, books, and living expenses?The fate of the Democratic effort to raise the minimum wage in Pennsylvania is still uncertain, despite passage of legislation raising the minimum wage in both the House and the Senate. Both raise the minimum wage in steps to $7.15, the House version (as amended by House Republicans) concluding at $7.15 as of July 1, 2007 and the Senate version (as amended by Senate Republicans) concluding at $7.15 for employers of more than 10 people or 10 full-time equivalents as of January 1, 2008 and for employers of 10 or less people concluding as of July 1, 2008.I started this whole debate. I got the legislature to pass the first minimum wage increase in excess of the federal minimum wage increase in Pennsylvania history in 1988. And, immediately after New York State passed its legislation raising the minimum wage to $7.15 in steps ending on January 1, 2007, I introduced legislation modeled on that in the Pennsylvania legislature.We have come a long way in the last year and a half. Governor Rendell and and various conservative Democrats have evolved into active supporters of this effort. And numerous Republicans in both the House and Senate have, in one way or the other, joined the effort.But despite House passage of our minimum wage bill in April, and Senate passage of its minimum wage bill on Thursday, June 22, 2006, the ultimate outcome of this issue still remains unclear. Republicans in the House--who screamed until the end that I and other Democrats were seeking to raise the minimum wage too fast, are now complaining that the Senate Republicans are seeking to raise the minimum wage too slowly. They are looking to create a deadlock under which the minimum wage stays at $5.15 for a long time--forever, if possible.I am determined that there will be no deadlock. My original House bill helped people more than the bill that ultimately passed the House. The bill that ultimately passed the House helped people more than the bill that ultimately passed the Senate. But the bill that ultimately passed the Senate helps more people--far more people--than doing nothing.It's time to stop delaying. I now favor House passage of the Senate bill without amendment. I want to send the bill directly to the Governor before the House breaks for the Summer.Students and others who are dependent on low wage jobs to achieve their goals deserve to know whether the Pennsylvania state government values them and values their labor. They deserve to know that NOW,while they are considering whether or not to remain in Pennsylvania to go to college, while they are considering whether or not to remain in Pennsylvania to pursue their goals. If you agree with me, please contact your state legislator--especially if he or she is a Republican--and urge action on the Senate Minimum Wage Bill NOW. We don't need a deadlock. We need action to raise the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage. We need action NOW.
Philadelphia tomorrow can be much more than it is today. We can get our variegated neighborhoods together with governmental and economic interests to create a future that will grow our city and enrich our lives.
June 25, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=271401#post271401
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I wrote the bill raising the minimum wage to $7.15. I initiated the bill raising the minimum wage to $7.15. I am the prime sponsor and chief public advocate of raising the minimum wage to $7.15. I led the effort to gather facts which helped persuade Governor Rendell to seek to raise the minimum wage to $7.15. In 1988, I got the state to raise to raise the minimum wage above the federal minimum wage for the first time. People thought I was crazy when I first started talking about the state's power to raise the minimum wage; the vast majority of people thought that only the federal government had that power.In 1987, Sandy Starobin, then the well-known KYW Harrisburg correspondent--the Tony Romeo of his day--caught me with a whole bunch on obscure topics on a day in which he and and I working but the Capitol was officially closed. He pointed to several titles, and asked why I was reading them."These are books about the Progressive Era, the era of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson," I explained. "In the progressive era, states--not including Pennsylvania--raised the minimum wage, and the federal government followed in the Administration of Franklin Roosevelt. We ought to be following the lead of the Progressive era states."Starobin rolled his eyes. "You're working much too hard," he said.Within two years, a scaled down version of to raise the minimum wage was law in Pennsylvania, and that helped build up pressure to raise the federal minimum wage early in the Clinton Administration.Starobin rolled his eyes.
May 21, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=253378#post253378
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Make no mistake, without state legislative action, the minimum wage is being repealed. It is being repealed by time, inflation and political indifference. Support for the status quo is support for repealing the minimum wage.I want to thank the Committee Chairman, Senator Scarnati, for holding this hearing in Philadelphia today. I sincerely hope it indicates a willingness on the part of the Senate leadership to consider a meaningful increase in the minimum wage during the legislative session this fall. As I stated in my letter to House and Senate leaders on August 10th, “I do believe that the House and the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, can come to a quick agreement this autumn to pass a significant minimum wage increase in a bi-partisan fashion, if we are given a chance to vote on it.”While I am sincerely appreciative of this opportunity to appear before this committee as the sponsor of House Bill 257, I do not believe this issue needs extensive and drawn out hearings to further define the issue or delay legislative action. The arguments, pro and con, have not really changed in decades; only the political climate has changed. In the past twenty years the national political climate has mostly worked against low wage workers and their families. But today we have a chance in Pennsylvania.I believe the votes are there for a significant increase--or more accurately, a restoration of the minimum wage-- if the Senate majority leadership will permit a clean vote. The legislative history on this issue illustrates the importance of the State Senate. In 2001 despite opposition from Governor Ridge, all the House Democrats were joined by a majority of the House Republican Caucus to pass a $1.00 minimum wage increase by an overwhelming vote of 152 to 43. In 1996, a Republican controlled House voted overwhelmingly to support a substantial minimum wage increase. Unfortunately in both cases, the Republican leadership in the Senate refused to consider the wage increases. Today we have a governor who has pledged to sign a minimum wage increase and, I strongly believe, continuing bipartisan support in the House.Mr. Chairman, your personal leadership and that of your colleagues here is critical to see that there is a full legislative vote on the minimum wage by the General Assembly. The need is great, and legislative action is long overdue. We now have a choice-- to restore the minimum wage or allow it to be repealed. The stakes could not be higher.Throughout the 1960's and 1970's the minimum wage held a family of three out of poverty. But since the 1980's the minimum wage has ceased to function as a living wage. If the minimum wage at its height in 1968 had been indexed for inflation, it would be just under $8.60 today. The buying power of the minimum wage has fallen to its lowest point since the late 1940s. In 1980, a student could work his or her way through college on a 20 hour week job. Today a 50 hour a week job wouldn’t pay the college bills even if it were possible to do both job and school work (with a share of the blame going to decline in minimum wage and a share to tuition outrunning inflation).College may be out of reach for minimum wage families but simple living is also. The United States Department of Health and Human Services’ 2005 Poverty Guideline for a family of three is $16,090. A full time minimum wage worker earns only $10,712, assuming he or she works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. That is $5,378 below, or just 66.6% of, that poverty line. A one parent, one child family falls $2,118 below the poverty line for a family of two (or just 83.5%) of $12,830. This is the lowest the minimum wage has been in terms of the poverty line since the inception of the federal poverty guideline in 1966. My legislation, HB 257, would come very close to restoring the minimum wage to its 1980 level as would Senator Tartaglione’s Senate Bill 369. Other proposals at least offer positive steps in that direction.Some say this should be a federal issue—and I agree. But it does not follow that if the Federal government fails to protect our most vulnerable citizen that we must compound this failure. It is an issue of basic economic justice. The minimum wage was first a state issue in the early 1900s. The New Deal made it a federal issue. The promise of the minimum wage was kept for the decades of the 1960s and 70s, but federal inaction in the 1980s and 90s again made the minimum wage a state issue.Since the 1980s the federal government has only acted to grant minimum wage increases after substantial pressure from the states—and those increases have not restored the buying power of the minimum wage to its previous levels. Today, 17 states plus the District of Columbia have enacted substantially higher minimum wages than the federal minimum of $5.15. Those states represent nearly 45% of all Americans. It’s past time for Pennsylvania to join these states. States all around us are acting. My legislation to raise our minimum wage to $7.15 by 2007 is intentionally patterned after laws in neighboring New York and New Jersey. Neighboring Delaware has already raised its minimum wage to $6.15—an amount higher than the first step envisioned in my bill. The Maryland legislature recently passed a $6.15 to take effect this month, only to have it vetoed by their Governor. The Maryland legislature is widely expected to override that veto when it returns to session in January.These surrounding states have acted to value work. The work of our citizens should not be valued less than theirs, and our families and children certainly do not deserve less.As I mentioned earlier, the arguments have not changed much on this issue over the decades. Some conservatives and business leaders have always opposed the minimum wage for philosophical and economic reasons. They are perfectly happy to allow the minimum wage to be repealed in stages by inflation. We still hear the arguments that increasing the minimum wage will increase unemployment among poor although the evidence has never been very clear on that point. More recent economic work helps explain why the traditional economic expectations of job loss failed to materialize. According to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington D.C,“New economic models that look specifically at low-wage labor markets help explain why there is little evidence of job loss associated with minimum wage increases. These models recognize that employers may be able to absorb some of the costs of a wage increase through higher productivity, lower recruiting and training costs, decreased absenteeism, and increased worker morale.”It is common sense that workers who feel treated fairly have a more positive attitude about their work. Conversely, devaluing work often feeds an attitude of “pretend work for pretend pay.”This year the politically conservative Commonwealth Foundation called minimum wage supporters “the economically ignorant.” In a widely circulated release entitled “Car Wash Blues” they tried to show how the minimum wage would adversely affect a mythical Philadelphia car wash paying 5.15 an hour—one of the problems with their analysis was that the median hourly wage of people employed “cleaning vehicles” in Philadelphia is $8.30 an hour according to May 2004 Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) data from the U.S. Department of Labor – already a much higher wage than is envisioned by any legislation.Bad examples aside, even the Commonwealth Foundation knows, and has occasionally admitted, that classical economists are not united in their opposition to the minimum wage on theoretical job loss grounds, as minimum wage opponents would have you believe. Last October more than 562 prominent economists--including 4 Nobel Prize winners in economics and 7 past presidents of the American Economic Association-- joined in endorsing an increase in the Federal minimum wage to $7.00. In their endorsement, these economists said, ``We believe that a modest increase in the minimum wage would improve the well-being of low-wage workers and would not have the adverse effects that critics have claimed.'' They go on to state: “As economists who are concerned about the problems facing low-wage workers, we believe the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2004's proposed phased-in increase in the federal minimum wage to $7.00 falls well within the range of options where the benefits to the labor market, workers, and the overall economy would be positive.” Reasonable, local minimum wage increases have also found support among economists. Last year 118 economists, many of national prominence, endorsed a Santa Monica, California, living wage referendum that set a minimum wage of $10.50 for the city’s hotel- tourist industry. In short, many economists believe that the positive effects of an increase far outweigh any negative impacts.Who are the workers that would benefit from a two dollar increase? Using national data the Economic Policy Institute estimates that 5.8% of the national workforce would benefit from a federal increase in the minimum wage to $7.25. (a little more than provided for in my legislation) Of these workers, 72.1% are adults and 60.6% are women. Close to half (43.9%) work full time and another third (34.5%) work between 20 and 34 hours per week. More than one-third (35%) of those workers are parents of children under age 18, including 760,000 single mothers. The average minimum wage worker brings home about half of his or her family's weekly earnings.Since the state covers more workers than the feds and other factors—such as possibly a higher percentage of minimum wage jobs, and many other states have already covered their employees with a higher minimum wage-- the Pennsylvania numbers are higher. The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry reports that 7.9% of the Pennsylvania’s hourly workforce or 257,000 would benefit from a one dollar per hour increase in the state’s minimum wage. 528,000 Pennsylvanians or 16.3% of the state’s hourly workforce would benefit from a two dollar per hour increase in the state’s minimum wage.House Bill 257, which I have sponsored along with 79 of my House colleagues, would raise the minimum wage by $2.00 in three steps-- $6.00/hr effective 60 days after the passage of the legislation; $6.75/hr effective January 1, 2006; $7.15/hr effective January 1, 2007. After the initial increases, my legislation provides for modest cost of living increases based on the federal consumer price index so that low wage workers will not again suffer form the political indifference that has made this minimum wage struggle so long and difficult. Without a COLA, repeal of the minimum wage by inflation will begin anew the day after it is enacted.Economists may argue, but as policy makers we must decide if our society truly values work or if it is just a slogan when it comes time to cut welfare benefits. We decry the feminization of poverty even knowing that it is not a coincidence that women are overwhelmingly the most likely caregiver in families with only one supporting parent and 60% of minimum wage workers are women. How can we say we value work when a minimum wage working mother with one child –a family of two— finds that they are thousands of dollars below the poverty line even if childcare and healthcare are affordable and available? What is the value of work if even two full-time workers can not keep a family of five out of poverty? How can we say we value work when a modest one bedroom apartment in Pennsylvania is far out of reach for a full-time minimum wage worker. How do we proclaim the importance of a college or post-secondary education when we know it is out of reach of so many families? The message we are sending is that we don’t value work. According to a Hart Research Poll taken this summer, half of all workers say their income is falling behind. It is time for us to take notice and the minimum wage is a good place to start.The minimum wage is not a federal issue, it is a fairness issue. This is an issue of simple social justice. As it is bad federal policy to allow a small family with a full-time wage earner working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks out of the year, to live in poverty. It is equally bad state policy. Today's minimum wage is not a living wage and it is not a fair wage for Pennsylvania's families.Please oppose the overt policy of allowing inflation to repeal the minimum wage over time. I beg you to do all in your power to allow a vote in the Senate to restore the minimum wage in Pennsylvania. This is not a time for delay. The spike in energy costs being experienced by all of us is going to hit low wage workers hardest of all. Low wage workers and their families more than deserve a raise, they desperately need a raise.
September 6, 2005
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:EtCba1k3k7EJ:21stcenturypennsylvania.blogspot.com/+%22mark+b+cohen%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=162
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There are conflicting signals as to how much resistance there will be in the Senate. One top Senate aide said they will not pass it at all in this session; another top Senate aide said $6.30 tops; a leader of the opposition though told an Evening Bulletin writer that he expected the Senate to cave and pass the House bill. One cannot know with absolute certainty what will or will not work. But just as one can truthfully tell a student that he or she is highly likely to be more successful with hard work and discipline than without it, so one can truthfully tell activists that focusing on the Republican Senators and the people in their districts is the best strategy.Keep talking about the minimum wage and how much people need an increase. Although the resistance to a minimum wage increase certainly indicates a lot of bad things about a lot of people, keep the focus on the minimum wage increase and not on other areas of societal injustice, tactics of minimum wage advocates, police response to minimum wage advocates, or other interesting, important but attention diverting side issues.When you have over 80% of the people on your side in poll after poll, you have an enormous advantage in hammering home your message if you just stick to it and avoid being distracted by tactics, sensationalism, and frustration.In 1988, I worked with the Philadelphia Unemployment project and we finally got a 10% or so raise in the minimum wage, from $3.35 to $3.65. We helped parley that, in concert with many others, into increasing the federal minimum to $5.15. This year, the conservative resistance position is $6.30, an increase of over 20%.We have come a long way, and are going to go much further.
April, 2006
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:lGrZMeyI6B4J:asmokefilledroom.blogspot.com/2006/04/great-news-on-minimum-wage.html+%22mark+b+cohen%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=396
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Earlier this week, the Maryland legislature passed an increase in the minimum wage over the veto of the governor. With that act, 18 states plus the District of Columbia, representing over 46% of all Americans, now have minimum wages significantly higher than the federal government.
If Pennsylvania passed one of the bills being considered by the general assembly, over half the nation’s population would be given far more protection than the federal government has been willing or able to give to our workers and their families.
Pennsylvania is now surrounded on three sides by higher minimum wages. The ever weak argument that fast food restaurants and other services industries will be flying across state lines to avoid higher wages now looks even more ridiculous. There are no more excuses.
There are no more excuses for the Republican leadership to bottle up every minimum wage bill. There are no more excuses to justify paying sub poverty wages to working people and their families. There are no more excuses to justify college student wages that make it impossible for them work their way through college as students in my generation did. There are no more excuses why we should force seniors to work longer hours at a declining minimum wage just to supplement meager pensions or social security payments so they can live with the dignity they deserve.
The minimum wage should not be a sub poverty wage for a small family of three or for a senior citizen or a college student. How many children lived, and live in, poverty because of legislative indifference; how many families broke up because of the indignity of poverty and financial stress; how many seniors worked longer hours than they should have, when they should have been home enjoying retirement years with spouses and grandchildren; how may college dreams were postponed or canceled or never even attempted because there was no money?
Pennsylvanians desperately need a minimum wage that provides dignity instead of poverty. There is no excuse for giving them anything less, and we should be ashamed of ourselves for taking so long to restore the minimum wage.
January 19, 2006
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:iwNt06x9JY8J:www.pahouse.com/cohen/minimumwage/govspressconfremarks.htm+%22mark+b+cohen%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=19
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Unfortuntately, the target audience we have to persuade is Republican members of the legislature because the Republicans have a majority in both Houses. Unfortunately, our target audience is not passionate admirers of Martin Luther King but those who tend to take his words out of context to oppose affirmative action and abortion rights.
Law and order has been a key theme of the Republican Party for decades: figures as diverse as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, both George Bushes, Arlen Specter, and Tom Ridge have won elections on this theme.
Some Republican somewhere may have won an election on support for civil disobedience, but I cannot name such a person. If such a person exists, he or she is not a visible Republican leader.
The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News have once or twice each endorsed a minimum wage hike. They are virtually alone in this area. Nor has their been a great rush among newspaper columnists to fill this void: to the best of my knowledge no columnist has yet devoted a column to urging an increase in the minimum wage, and John Baer is the only columnist to half-heartedly endorse it at the bottom of a long column dealing with other matters.
We are also hurt by continuously declining number of Pennsylvanians who are members of labor unions: that number is now down to 750,000. When I become Chairman of the House Labor Relations Committee in 1983, the AFL-CIO alone had 1.4 million members in Pennsylvania, and there were hundreds of thousands of other union members not affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
Yes, it is frustrating to advocate for progressive change when the media and the dominant political power structure are stacked against us. But our best chance of victory is to keep the debate focused on the minimum wage and the vast majority of Pennsylvanians who support it, not on the tactics of minimum wage backers when we know from past experience that these tactics are not productive in Pennsylvania.
The Republicans know how to read public opinion polls; they know that other states have passed a minimum wage increase and virtually all other states have efforts under way to push for a minimum wage increase; they know that key members of the Bush Adminstration favor a minimum wage increase. They and their backers will utimately yield. But I would much rather have Pennsylvania be the 20th or 21st state to raise the minimum wage (which is what would happen if the legislature acts soon) than be the 45th or 50th state to raise the minimum wage some years down the road.
April 4, 2006
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:8iHfJSw4JzsJ:www.stier.net/blog/2006/04/03/is-civil-disobedience-justified/+%22MARK+B+COHEN%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=50
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On April 10, 2006 Arkansas became the 20th state to raise the minimum wage over $5.15, coming in with $6.25 effective on October 1, 2006. On April 11, 2006, Maine became the 10th State to have a minimum wage of $7.00 or over, hitting that figure on October 1, 2007. Maine was already over the federal minimum at the time.
With Arkansas’ action, A MAJORITY OF ALL AMERICANS NOW LIVE IN STATES WITH A MINIMUM WAGE HIGHER THAN THE FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE. Once this fact becomes widely known, pressure in the other states should increase.
I deeply appreciate this blog’s strong coverage of the minimum wage issue and your kind words about me. With all the effort that has already been generated to influence the Senate, and all the effort that will be generated in the future, I think we have an excellent chance of raising Pennsylvania’s minimum wage this year.
Tennessee may beat us and become the 21st state. If we don’t act before the general election, Ohio, Nevada, Arizona, and Montana will also beat us, because they are highly likely to pass referenda on this issue this November. But one way or another, we should prevail and get low income Pennsylvanians a raise in salary that they deserve.
April 18, 2006
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:WBOrdCPB4VEJ:skaroff.com/blog/index.php/2006/04/07/penna-assembly-passes-minimum-wage-hike/+%22mark+b+cohen%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=291
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I welcome the Maryland legislature’s final approval today of a $1-per-hour increase in the minimum wage in that state. The new minimum rate in Maryland will be $6.15 per hour.Maryland’s Democratic legislature overrode a veto by the Republican governor, so the wage hike will become law there. Maryland is set to join the 18 states nationwide with minimum wages higher than the 9-year-old federal minimum wage. The Maryland law will take effect in 30 days. Pennsylvania should take the cue and be the next.The Maryland legislature’s affirmative vote to increase the state’s minimum wage to $6.15 will mean that 46.3 percent of the nation’s population is protected by a minimum wage higher than the federal standard.If Pennsylvania would pass one of its minimum wage proposals, which are currently being bottled up by Republican leadership, more than 50 percent of the nation’s population would be protected by a wage higher than the outdated federal rate, which has been eroded by nine years of inflation.House and Senate Democrats will renew their efforts to increase the state’s minimum wage when the General Assembly returns to Harrisburg later this month. Unlike Maryland, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Edward Rendell strongly supports raising Pennsylvania's minimum wage.With the addition of Maryland, four states bordering Pennsylvania will have minimum wages higher than the federal rate. The others are New Jersey, Delaware and New York. If you would like to learn more our efforts to raise the minimum wage and the need for this change, you can visit my home page at http://www.pahouse.net/cohen/MinimumWage.asp or one of bills I have introduced to raise the minimum wage, H.B. 2021.
September 21, 2005
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:EtCba1k3k7EJ:21stcenturypennsylvania.blogspot.com/+%22mark+b+cohen%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=162
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As a longtime state legislative advocate of raising Pennsylvania's minimum wage who is thrilled that New York has now done what we should have done years ago, I love the phrase "wage depression." It is descriptive, evocative, and thoroughly accurate.
I look forward to working with Inequality.org and its members to change state and federal policies to reduce the scourge of wage depression so that the middle class does not devolve into an exclusive private club.
January 4, 2005
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:iMnQaxUnpgMJ:inequality.typepad.com/board/2004/10/the_great_wage_.html+%22mark+b+cohen%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=232
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Reasonable minimum wage increases do not cause inflation. This is because at any given point there are more jobs available at given wages than people willing to fill the jobs at these wages, and there is more money being spent--via credit cards, revolving lines of credit, easy payment terms and other debt instruments--then there is money being earned. And the vast majority of workers at any given time earn far more than the minimum wage, whatever the minimum is.In the first six months of 2007, for instances, states across the country, including Pennsylvania, raised the minimum wage. Pennsylvania's minimum wage, during this period, went up from $5.15 an hour to $6.25 an hour.Today's August 1, 2007 Wall Street Journal reports on the economic activity during these six months: the article on page two is headlined "Why Inflation Fears Are Easing" and is subtitled "Spending Rate Ebbs, Wage Growth Slows; A Drag From Housing."The article noted that the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation measure, the price index for personal consumption expenditures excluding food and energy, rose 0.1% in June and was up 1.9% from a year earlier, according to the U. S. Commerce Department. This was the statistic's lowest point since March 2004.The Labor Department said its employment cost index rose o.9% in the second quarter, up slightly from 0.8% in the first quarter. Benefits costs increased 1.3% after a first quarter gain of 0.1%. Growth in wages and salaries slowed to 0.8% in the second quarter from 1.1% in the first quarter. (The slightly greater wage growth in the first quarter, I would guess, could be due in part to minimum wage increases taking effect then.)But the Conference Board's consumer confidence measure soared in July, 2007 to its highest reading since August, 2001. The business group's index rose to 112.6, up from 105.3 in June. (I would guess that the minimum wage increases, generally taking effect in January and July helped boost this rating, which is based on public opinion polls.)"Much of the improvement in the Conference Board's survey," Wall Street Journal reporter Sudeep Reddy reports, "reflects a sharp increase in the number of people reporting jobs to be plentiful. It is the latest sign that strong job growth and a low 4.5% unemployment rate are keeping the economy relative strong despirte forecasts of a decline in the job market."Consumer spending rose 0.1% in June before inflation, "the smallest increase since September" of 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported. "(R)ecord gasoline prices weighed heavily on consumers, the Commerce Department said yesterday. Adjusted for inflation, spending was flat. Personal income rose 0.4% and the saving rate nudged up to 0.6% from the previous month's 0.4%."More and more people are recognizing the difference between the theories of economists and the reaction of the economy to the complex world in which we live. In the real world, reasonable increases in the minimum wage do not produce inflation because of their smallness in the economy and the offsetting positive things they bring to the economy in terms of filling of job vacancies that otherwise go begging, increased productivity, debt repayment, increased tax revenues, reduction of increases in welfare costs, increased consumer confidence, increased investment in education, etc.
August 1, 2007
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=543996#post543996
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One reason for the continued increases in minimum wage rates to match increases in inflation is that minimum wage increases are generally followed by declines in unemployment.In Pennsylvania, for instance, in the first six months of the year, unemployment fell to 3.8% as the minimum wage rose from $5.15 to $6.25. More people are willing to work at low wage jobs when the pay goes up, so there are fewer vacancies there and turnover declines.An individual employer might hesitate to raise his own employees' wages because of fears of a competitive disadvantage. But, if all wages are going up, then he gets the benefit of lower turnover and more motivated workers.EITC increase fans should keep in mind that tax dollars fund the EITC and it costs the state money. Increasing the minimum wage generates additional state, local, and federal tax dollars.In an analagous situation, the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association is now backing a statewide smoking ban in restaurants. If it passes, individual restaurants will not be penalized by customers visiting their competitors, and they will gain the benefits of greater appeal to non-smokers. A restaurant owner today strongly pleaded with me to back the ban because of such concerns.
July 10, 2007
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=527642#post527642
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In proposing a federal minimum wage of $8.00 in 2010, $8.75 in 2011, and $9.50 in 2012, with annual cost of living increases thereafter, 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards became the first national figure to endorse a minimum wage of over $9 an hour.Edwards' proposal is similar to one that I made in the Pennsylvania legislature in 2006, and I reintroduced this year. My proposal raises Pennsylvania's current $7.15 minimum wage to $8.15 in 2008, $8.75 in 2009, and $9.35, with increases annually based on the cost of living. Assuming a 3% annual inflation rate in 2010 and 2011, Pennsylvania's mimum wage under my proposal would hit $9.63 in 2011 and $9.92 in 2012.Both Edwards and I seek to raise the minimum wage in the early years of our proposal above the rate of inflation in order to help get minimum wage recipients with two dependents out of poverty for the first time since the Reagan Administration began stalling minimum wage increases to allow the minimum wage to be repealed by predictable inflation over time.Contrary to the hysteria generated by minimum wage increase opponents, raising the minimum wage more frequently reduces unemployment than increases it. That is because many low wage jobs go vacant for periods of time, as potential applicants weigh the costs of transportation, clothing, food, and time associated with working, and conclude that low wage jobs are not worth taking. Upping the starting salaries brings more people into the workforce, and keeping salaries going in an upward direction keeps them there.Giving low income workers more money increases the economic viability of many stores with a large urban clientele, boosts the economy in general, and gives the Social Security system more money for future payouts.My hope is that Edwards' proposal will lead other Democratic Presidential candidates, Congressmen, and Senators to either back his proposal or issue their own proposals. The more national figures talk about raising the minimum wage to over $9 an hour, the easier it will be to mobilize both the grassroots and the netroots behind such a campaign.The recent Congressional increase--to $5.85 later this month, $6.65 next year, and $7.25 in 2009--was too little, too late for the vast majority of low wage workers in America. Vigorous state actions in Pennsylvania and most other states had greatly limited the effects of this increase, both in terms of the number of people affected and the degree to which they were affected. While the increase to $7.25 in 2009 was certainly better than doing nothing, it was not a very strong use of federal power.I hope that the Edwards proposal will prove to be a constructive start towards mobilizing the Democratic leadership, organized labor, the grassroots and the netroots, behind continued minimum wage increases in the interests of preventing human suffering and reducing economic injustices.
July 3, 2007
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=522765#post522765
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Congressional Democrats rightly killed--at least for the time being--the Republican bid to take a watered down version of the Congressional Democrats' watered down minimum wage bill and trade it for massive long term tax breaks heavily targeted at the wealthiest Americans.
But, in doing so, they have opened themselves up to charges that they are not really for a minimum wage increase.
The best way to rebut this canard to come out for a much higher minimum wage bill than the inadequate one now before Congress in a desperate bid to gain Republican support. Massive state action around the country has given the Congressional Democrats the lever they need to regain control of this issue and a chance to meaningfully improve the lives of millions of Americans.
August 6, 2006
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:GjYYJdbaHO4J:state-rep-mark-cohen-dem-pa.dailykos.com/main/2+%22daily+kos%22+mark+cohen&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2
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Anybody who believes that minimum wage increases actually cost jobs should provide a link to a story or a posting documenting that somehwere in the United States a company ACTUALLY HAS laid off people as a result of a minimum wage increase. There certainly are very few such companies, if, indeed, any exist anywhere.The fact is that when the United States first started establishing minimum wage standards in the 1930's there were over 30 million non-agricultural jobs in the U.S. and today there are over 140 million non-agricultural jobs in the U.S. Raising minimimum wages is one of the components of growing economies in the U.S. and around the world.
August 6, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=297912#post297912
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My goal is meet the traditional standard of the minimum wage before the Reagan Admistration: enough money for a full-time minimum wage worker to support two dependents without being in poverty.That would require at least $8.25 an hour in 2007, with cost of living increases thereafter.No state in the country is yet at that level,and the propoosed federal bill is not at that level, so achieving it would require increases above the rate of inflation until we get there. I am introducing a bill raising Pennsylvania's minimum wage to $8.15 in 2008, $8.75 in in 2009, and $9.35 in 2010. That might get us there, but it whether it does or not depends upon the rate of inflation.There is a lot of gnashing of teeth about the reluctance of young people to marry, the attractiveness of violent and illegal street culture to minority youth, men who do not take responsibility for their children born either in marriage or out of wedlock, and men who who decline to take advantage of educational opportunities to the extent that far more women than men now attend and graduate from college.Of course, there are character issues involved here, but there also are issues of lack of money. By moving to re-establish unskilled work as a source of enough money to keep one out of poverty, we are making it easier to solve many other societal problems.
August 5, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=297607#post297607
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Raising the minimum wage cuts turnover and training costs and increases the number of cutomers. The business with the three diswashers should generate extra revenue from having more customers, and should reduce costs by not having to run some ads for more workers, not having to supervise the training of some workers, not having breakage from inexperienced workers, not having theft from short term workers with little loyalty to the company, etc.
August 5, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=297511#post297511
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The unanimous vote by the Massachusetts House and Senate to override Governor Mitt Romney's veto of minimum wage legislation making Massachusetts the first state to set a statutory wage of $8 (in 2008) sends a strong national message that the battle to raise the minimum wage over the poverty level still continues to gather momentum.
The House vote was 152 to 0, and the Senate vote was 38 to 0. "For those of us that care about the minimum wage, it's simply an issue of fairness, of economic justice," said Senator Mark R. Pacheco (D-Taunton), the chief sponsor of the Senate bill that originally, before being watered down, sought to raise the minimum wage to $8.25 in 2008 with an annual COLA thereafter. See http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/08/01/minimum_wage_hike...
The Governor's press secretary Eric Fehrnstrom assailed "an increase that substantially exceeded the rate of inflation...that was too much, too fast."
August 1, 2006
http://state-rep-mark-cohen-dem-pa.dailykos.com/user/state%20rep%20mark%20cohen%20dem%20pa/diary/3
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Republicans who expected Congressional Democrats to quickly roll over and accept massive tax subsidies for corporations and very wealthy individuals are facing a new reality that they do not appear to have considered: the fact that 22 states have already raised the minimum wage for all workers, and two others have raised it for public employees.
The 22 states represent nearly 60% of the people in the United States, and include the vast majority of Democrats in both the House and the Senate. These states are joined by five additional states that will have minimum wage questions on the ballot in November, and many other states that can reasonably be expected to raise the minimum wage following the November elections.
For prime sponsor Ted Kennedy in the Senate, for instance, a federal minimum wage increase to $7.25 an hour in 2009 will have no effect on his constituents if the Massachusetts legislature, as expected, overrides the veto of Governor Mitt Romney and raises the minimum wage to $8 an hour in 2008.
July 29, 2006
http://state-rep-mark-cohen-dem-pa.dailykos.com/user/state%20rep%20mark%20cohen%20dem%20pa/diary/3
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Republicans in Congress are now on the verge of agreeing to Democratic demands that they increase the minimum wage to $7.25. The immediate debate is about what gifts to business interests, if any, should be added to the minimum wage package.
But this ongoing debate is not the most important one we should be having. The most important debate we should be having is how we get minimum wage workers out of poverty.
$7.25 an hour is still a poverty wage. That statement is not just rhetoric. At 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, $7.25 an hour amounts to $15,080. The current poverty level for a family of three is $16,600.
July 28, 2006
http://state-rep-mark-cohen-dem-pa.dailykos.com/user/state%20rep%20mark%20cohen%20dem%20pa/diary/3
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Governor Ed Rendell signed the minimum wage increase into law at about 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, July 9, 2006, at the Sharon Baptist Church--a beautiful complex located on the 3900 Block of Conshocken Avenue, near Ford Street.There was a lot of credit to go around for this historic accomplishment, and many speeches were made. In my speech, I called for an $8 minimum wage for 2008. I was pleased to see Rendell leading the applause.
July 10, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=278514#post278514
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I did study economics, both as an undergraduate taking courses offered at the Wharton School and, to a lesser degree, as an MBA student. I know enough economics to know that much of economics is based on theoretical models and not what really happens. Theoretical economics models do predict job losses following passage of minimum wage legislation. Actual experience, however, shows that job gains follow as more people are drawn into the work force and job turnover at jobs held by unskilled workers and inexperienced workers greatly declines.I studied political science at a time when the idea that the study of how political actors actually behave was gaining on the idea that theoretical models should dominate analysis. Since then, the study of how people actually behave--its advocates are called behavioralists--has dominated political science. Unfortunately, the economics profession--generally tied in with schools of business with funding dependent on the good will of corporate leaders--has not had a change in direction of a similar magnitude.One famous example of why this is the case was provided by the Wharton School when it fired Economics Professor Scott Nearing during the presidential administration of Woodrow Wilson for--first among a variety of sins--publicly advocating minimum wage increases. Nearing lived to be nearly 100, became a leading advocate of, and best-selling author about, small-scale farming who developed a widespread folllowing, and visited Penn occasionally as a lecturer. I heard him speak in the late 1960's, and Penn finally at a public ceremony officially apologized for the firing and made Nearing a Professor Emeritus in the 1970's.
July 10, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=278504#post278504
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Earlier this year, after it became clear that cost of living increases for minimum wage workers would not be part of any minimum wage increase passed this year, I introduced legislation raising the minimum wage to $8 in 2008. Under legislation to be signed into law by Governor Rendell on Sunday, July 9, 2006, Pennsylvania's minimum wage will hit $7.15 on July 1, 2007 for employers of 11 or more people, and will hit $7.15 on July 1, 2008 for all other employers.I picked the $8 in 2008 figure because it seemed to be the direction that other states were heading. Massachusetts becomes the first state to statutorily hit that figure when House and Senate negotiators agreed on it on July 5, 2006.The Massachusetts Senate has already passed that proposal, and the House is due to vote on it Monday, July 10, 2006. It is unclear whether Governor Romney will sign the measure--my feeling is that he will--but in any case the legislature "has consistently overridden his vetoes" and seems certain to do so again.Other states states likely to hit $8 in 2008 given current inflationary trends include three states with statutory cost of living increases for minimum wage workers: Washington State (now at $7.63), Oregon (now at $7.50), and Vermont (now at $7.25).In California, Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature are haggling over the merits of $7.75 with a cost of living increase and $7.75 without a cost of living increase; my guess is that if a compromise is reached it will be at least $8 with no cost of living increase. If no compromise is reached, California voters will likely approve a referendum giving $7.75 in 2007 and annual cost of living increases thereafter.For the Massachusetts story, see:http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/2007/legislature_agrees_to...
July 7, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=277778#post277778
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The United States has had more than 100 years of experience with state and federal minimum wage laws. With all that experience, and with business lobbying against the Pennsylvania minimum wage increase that will be signed into law by Governor Rendell on Sunday afternoon, July 9, 2006 at the Sharon Baptist Church on Conshocken Avenue, no one cited any actual experience of anyone who had ever lost his or her job as a result of a minimum wage increase in any public forum of which I am aware.I do not assert that there is no such person in American history. But the ever-rising levels of employment in this country--and in states that raise the minimum wage higher than the national average--demonstrate that this is not a significant problem.The studies that have been done against the minimum wage are all or virtually all theoretical. They are based on economic models which provide estimated effects based on given assumptions. In 1988, I succeeded in getting Pennsylvania to raise the minimum wage from $3.35 to $3.70. I would have preferred a larger minimum wage increase, but this was all Senate Republicans would agree to. New Jersey kept its wage at $3.35.Two Princeton economists, Card and Kreuger, tired of studies based on economic models, decided to compare employment change in Pennsylvania and New Jersey after Pennsylvania's minimum wage law took effect. Under the economic models, Pennsylvania should have lost jobs as a result of raising the minimum wage. Employers should moved jobs to New Jersey.Instead, in the real world, what happened was Pennsylvania not only gained jobs, but gained jobs faster than New Jersey. Pennsylvania's minimum wage appeared to be a modest stimulator of job growth, rather than a cause of job decline.On Wednesday, July 5, 2006, I attended a public hearing called by Senators Arlen Specter and Ted Kennedy at the Constitution Center to discuss prospective changes in immigration law. A good number of witnesses testifed to the effect that they could not fill job vacancies with American workers. In seeking an appropriate balance between the interests of business and American workers, both Specter and Kennedy have supported an amendment to current law requiring employers to pay at least the wages offered under the Davis-Bacon Act to workers before finding that there are no Americans willing to take the job.It is hardly an original observation on my part that raising wages attracts more people to the workforce and creates greater employee loyalty. As a consumer, I have heard supervisors apologize for poor service in restaurants and retail establishments on the ground that they cannot get workers to fill available positions. The conservative critique of the welfare system is based in significant measure on the belief that some people will stay out of the work force if their benefits are close to the salaries they would earn.I believe the growth in jobs found by Card and Kreuger--and by other studies cited by the Keystone Research Center that followed the Card and Kreuger research design to various degrees--is due largely to the attraction of additional workers to fill vacancies. When workers enter the workforce, of course, the frequent pattern is that their salaries improve over time, increasing dramatically the difference between work and governmental benefits.If economic distress had followed past minimum wage increases, there would not be over 80% approval for minimum wage increases, including over 70% approval among Republicans. There would not be findings from pollsters that approval of minimum wage increases by legislative bodies leads to even greater support for them--over 90% support in some states.What the vast majority of people do with pay raises is spend it to meet their most urgent needs. For minimum wage workers, that is supporting their families, meeting the demands of creditors, and saving to pay for college or trade school education. If there is a study to the contrary, I have not seen it or heard of it.As to my belief that a higher minimum wage deters crime, it comes from conversations with police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges--many of whom matter of factly point out that the vast majority of criminals are perennially unemployed. As minimum wage increases attracts new people into the workforce, they lower the pool of potential criminals. Obviously, personal character counts. Some unemployed people have rigid integrity and would rather starve than violate the law. Some employed people are greedy and contemptuous of the law. But character is influenced--but not controlled--by circumstance. People who commit crimes can often come up with witnesses and evidence to testify to their sterling character. It is precisely because of this that state and federal laws provide for minimum sentences upon conviction for most crimes.Minimum wage increases are certainly not a cure-all for the problems of society. But they are a rare governmental program that generates more revenue than costs, and that has overwhelming support among voters of both parties.
July 6, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=276670#post276670
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The only person who asked me to introduce a minimum wage increase bill before I did so was a Temple University college student. Long before the Inquirer and Daily News endorsed a minimum wage increase, the Temple News endorsed it enthusiastically.A leading longtime opponent of the minimum wage increases, Temple Professor William Dunkelburg, who has an active consulting business for corporate clients, noted in his testimony before the state senate--in a public hearing held at Temple with a good number of Temple students in attendance--that most of his students work full-time to pay their tuition.(The average full professor at Temple earns $104,000 a year from academic duties alone.)The minimum wage might not be a widespread University of Pennsylvania or Drexel issue, but it is clearly a widespread Temple or Community College of Philadelphia issue. Even for students who receive some parental help, the amount of wages they can earn may determine whether college education , or full-time college education, is feasible at any given time period.When I went to college (the University of Pennsylvania, Class of 1970) a Penn State or Temple student could pay his her entire annual tuition by working over the summer full time and earning the minimum wage. Before the new Pennsylvania legislation takes effect, even working full time at the minimum wage 52 weeks a year is not enough to pay one's tuition. Five or six year undergraduate stays are becoming more common than four year undergraduate stays as a result.I was fortunate to have parents affluent enough to pay all my college tuition and most of my living expenses. I was able to graduate college slightly in the black. Today, the average debt is approaching $20,000 for a college graduate. More and more college graduates are reaching $50,000 in debts. This often will have serious long-term effects on the quality of their lives, especially as Congress last year made it much tougher to declare bankruptcy.One interesting fact is that graduates of private colleges are significantly less likely to earn graduate degrees than graduates of state colleges. Part of that may be due to a private college degree being worth more, but part of it is also due to private college students and their families are more likely to be tapped out.
July 6, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=276919#post276919
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With House and Senate passage of identical language raising the minimum wage in Pennsylvania on June 30, 2006 and July 1, 2006, and Governor Rendell's promise to sign the bill into law, passage of the minimum wage law will soon be history.It will be history that all Democrats and many Republicans can be proud of. The Pennsylvania legislature has decisively acted to give struggling Pennsylvanians the same economic rights as their fellow citizens have in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Alaska--although, due to Republican insistence, on a slower timetable.All Pennsylvanians working for an employer with 11 or more full-time employees, or their part-time equivalents, will hit the $7.15 target on July 1, 2007. The minimum wage will hit $6.25 an hour on January 1, 2007 for those employers in this category.For those emplyers with 10 or fewer full-time employees or their part-time equivalents, the minimum wage hits $5.65 an hour on January 1, 2007, $6.65 an hour on July 1, 2007, and $7.15 on July 1, 2008.The effect of this legislation is to give about 423,000 economically struggling Pennsylvanians hundreds of millions of dollars in extra buying power. This will lead to a reduction of debt, greater participation in the workforce, and greater ability to support one's family and save for college.This legislation does not, howwever, meet the ultimate goal of allowing a full-time wage earner to support two dependents and not be under the federally defined poverty line. One who works 52 weeks a year, forty hours a week, will earn all of $290 per week, or $14,980 a year. The federal poverty level now is $16,600 for a person with two dependents, and it will undoubtedly rise in 2007 and 2008.I am therefore on developing a campaign for legislation I have already introduced raising the minimum wage to $8 in 2008, with annual cost of living adjustments geared to the federal poverty level. My hope is that we will be able to get ahead of the curve on inflation and join other states clearly headed in the direction of $8 a year in the minimum wage: so far California, Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, Vermont, and Conneticut, with many more likely to follow.I began working on raising the minimum wage in Pennsylvania in 1987, when the minimum wage was $3.35. I got the first minimum wage increase in Pennsylvania history enacted in 1988, a 9% increase to $3.65.With the passage of the 39% increase this year, we have now raised the Pennsylvania minimum wage by 113% over an 19 year period--very good, but not quite the equal of inflation.The Philadelphia Unemployment Project the AFL-CIO and many House and Senate members have been solid long-term partners for meaningful change. I look for these efforts to continue so that we can re-establish the principle that full-time workers should not live in poverty.
Philadelphia tomorrow can be much more than it is today. We can get our variegated neighborhoods together with governmental and economic interests to create a future that will grow our city and enrich our lives.
July 3, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?t=20594
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A higher minimum wage will not bring back the railroads, or the coal fields, or the oil fields, of any of the other bases of Pennsylvania's 19th and 20th century economy that have been depleted, moved, or outsourced.What a higher minimum wage does is it attracts people to the workforce, reduces job turnover, training costs, and unpaid debts. It makes it possible for more people to graduate from low and moderate cost colleges.It reduces child poverty. It gives good and rational people in desperate economic circumstances a stronger alternative to the drug trade and other illegal activities. It gives senior citizens-- and homemakers with little work experience-- a chance to make some extra money to support their families.Within Pennsylvania, it adds hundreds of millions of dollars of buying power to low-income citizens. It gives them the incentives and the resources to meet obligations, pay debts, and save small amounts of money for the future.It does this while generating extra revenues for the Social Security system, federal, state, and local governments. It is bottom-up economics instead of the usual top-down economics.Before the federal first raised the minimum wage in the 1930's, there were over 30 million jobs in the United States. Today, many minimum wage increases later, there are over 140 million jobs in the United States. The idea that the minimum wage increases lead to the elimination of jobs has no basis whatsoever in reality, except to an extremely small degree for the most enonomically marginal of enterprises.
July 2, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=275223#post275223
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The imminent enactment of by far the largest minimum wage increase in Pennsylvania legislative history--a raise nearly four times the old record in percentage terms and nearly seven times the old record in dollars unadjusted for inflation--will owe its success to a variety of factors.First, the $5.15 minimum wage figure had been virtually repealed by inflation as a meaningful figure. A single person with no dependents and no outside support who worked 52 weeks a year at that level would be in poverty. It was not only not a family supporting wage; it was not an individual supporting wage. Fewer people were working at that level, and it was clear that the figure would soon become completely meaningless.Second, there was a record national effort to raise the minimum wage. In the late 1980's, I had led an effort to help sell the AFL-CIO and my fellow legislators on the need for national state by state efforts to raise living standards. Both the AFL-CIO and virtually all national progressive organizations in general had seen national campaigns solely as a vehicle for organizing pressure on the federal government.My efforts and those of my legislative allies in other states bore fruit slowly. We were quickly able to put together on a shoestring a national organization of labor-oriented legislators, and get a committee of the National Conference of State Legislatures formed to focus on labor-related issues. (I was the Treasurer of the organization, now called the National Labor Caucus of State Legislators, in its first incarnation, and am on the Executive Board of it's current incarnation. I received an award from NCSL for my leadership in forming the NCSL Labor Committee in December, 1992.)We got labor leaders to attend NCSL meetings in significant numbers for the first time, to learn about what was happening in other states, to meet with legislators from around the country, and to meet with their counterparts representing the business community. Statewide AFl-CIO'sformed a national organization of their own, Worker's Voice, which holds annual meetings before NCSL meetings in the city in which the NCSL convention is held. Active legislators and leaders of other national and state organizations are also invited to attend.When Massachusetts got out of the gate early and raised the minimum wage to $6.75 in 2001, there already was an embyonic national infrastructure in place to match or exceed that figure in other states. Before Pennsylvania finally passes the minimum wage, 20 other states have passed a meaningful minimum wage increase (the state of Washington is now the highest at a current $7.63, with a COLA due in January), and West Virginia had passed an increase to $7.15 that applied to only a few people.The effect of all this is it killed the argument that Pennsylvania would be at a competitive disadvantage by raising the minimum wage. Already a majority of the country's population is covered by a higher minimum wage, and it is absolutely clear that a majority of the states will pass a higher minimum wage by the end of 2006, and many more states will pass a higher minimum wage in 2007 and 2008. The national minimum wage increase effort now extends to at least 47 states, with additional successes in Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia and a likely further success in Guam.Third, the organizing efforts of the Minimum Wage Coalition, the AFL-CIO and some of its affiliated unions, the non-AFL-CIO Pennsylvania State Education Association, and various organizations originating from the 2004 Presidential campaign were helpful in demonstrating that the issue had widespread support and that the consistent polling figures of over 80% public support throughout the country demonstrated a constituency that was both informed and mobilizable.Fourth, Governor Rendell and Democratic leaders Bill DeWeese and Mike Veon deserve tremendous credit for keeping this issue in the public forefront through a steady drumbeat of public statements and endless rallies. Their efforts were indispensable in elevating raising the minimum wage from an effort supported by the vast majority of Democratic legislators to an effort supported by every single Democratic legislator and viewed as a top priority by the vast majority of Democratic legislators.Fifth, the wall of media silence and opposition was pierced. The Inquirer and Daily News, the Allentown Morning Call, and a few other papers at least voiced some support for raising the minimum wage. While the vast majority of the newspapers in Pennsylvania were either silent or opposed--and the papers that supported it clearly lacked any great enthusiasm for the cause--the limited support that was given was far more than had ever been given before.Sixth, the Keystone Research Center was very helpful in coming up with useful facts--such as the fact that the percentage of minimum wage workers was highest in rural Republican areas, which they helpfully provided county by county breakdowns to prove.There certainly are other issues that the same forces can address, such as improving the availability of health care coverage. I would hope, though, that continued effort is made to follow the leadership of California, Massachusetts and other states, which are seeking a minimum wage that will lift a family of three out of the poverty level. The Democrats are going to make major gains in the 2006 elections, and we should not be satisfied with the minimum wage levels we have achieved with a Republican House and a Republican Senate.
June 29, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=274104#post274104
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Agreement has been reached between leaders of the House and Senate on a schedule to raise the minimum wage in Pennsylvania.On Friday, June 30, the House will vote for the bill that the Senate passed, with very minor technical amendments, raising the minimum wage to $7.15 for all Pennsylvanians by July 1, 2008, and for the vast majority of Pennsylvanians by January 1, 2008. My original target had been to hit the $7.15 figure by January 1, 2007 and House Republicans had supported hitting it by July 1, 2007.After the House passes the bill, the Senate will pass it as amended either on Friday, June 30 or Saturday, July 1. The bill will then be sent to the Governor, who will sign it.I believe this 39% increase in the minimum wage over a two year period is a great victory for the people of Pennsylvania and for all of those who worked hard to achieve it. It is the highest percentage minimum wage increase in the history of Pennsylvania state government, and is one of the highest statutory figure percentage increases in the history of any state government.It is not enough, however, to get a minimum wage worker with two dependents out of poverty. I have already introduced additional legislation raising the minimum wage to $8 effective January 1, 2008, with indexing to the federal poverty level each year thereafter. I will continue to work in the Pennsylvania legislature, and with legislators and minimum wage campaign leaders in other states, to move us closer to the day when no American working a 40 hour work week is in poverty.
June 29, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=273821#post273821
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College students all over America are now planning where they will be going in late August or early September. For those who have already settled on their choice, the planning is relatively easy.For the many students who have been accepted at two or more colleges they are interested in attending, and are still uncertain, the decision process has many elements. What courses are to be offered? What athletic programs? What living arrangements? What financial aid packages? And how much money can be earned to pay the costs of tuition, books, and living expenses?The fate of the Democratic effort to raise the minimum wage in Pennsylvania is still uncertain, despite passage of legislation raising the minimum wage in both the House and the Senate. Both raise the minimum wage in steps to $7.15, the House version (as amended by House Republicans) concluding at $7.15 as of July 1, 2007 and the Senate version (as amended by Senate Republicans) concluding at $7.15 for employers of more than 10 people or 10 full-time equivalents as of January 1, 2008 and for employers of 10 or less people concluding as of July 1, 2008.I started this whole debate. I got the legislature to pass the first minimum wage increase in excess of the federal minimum wage increase in Pennsylvania history in 1988. And, immediately after New York State passed its legislation raising the minimum wage to $7.15 in steps ending on January 1, 2007, I introduced legislation modeled on that in the Pennsylvania legislature.We have come a long way in the last year and a half. Governor Rendell and and various conservative Democrats have evolved into active supporters of this effort. And numerous Republicans in both the House and Senate have, in one way or the other, joined the effort.But despite House passage of our minimum wage bill in April, and Senate passage of its minimum wage bill on Thursday, June 22, 2006, the ultimate outcome of this issue still remains unclear. Republicans in the House--who screamed until the end that I and other Democrats were seeking to raise the minimum wage too fast, are now complaining that the Senate Republicans are seeking to raise the minimum wage too slowly. They are looking to create a deadlock under which the minimum wage stays at $5.15 for a long time--forever, if possible.I am determined that there will be no deadlock. My original House bill helped people more than the bill that ultimately passed the House. The bill that ultimately passed the House helped people more than the bill that ultimately passed the Senate. But the bill that ultimately passed the Senate helps more people--far more people--than doing nothing.It's time to stop delaying. I now favor House passage of the Senate bill without amendment. I want to send the bill directly to the Governor before the House breaks for the Summer.Students and others who are dependent on low wage jobs to achieve their goals deserve to know whether the Pennsylvania state government values them and values their labor. They deserve to know that NOW,while they are considering whether or not to remain in Pennsylvania to go to college, while they are considering whether or not to remain in Pennsylvania to pursue their goals. If you agree with me, please contact your state legislator--especially if he or she is a Republican--and urge action on the Senate Minimum Wage Bill NOW. We don't need a deadlock. We need action to raise the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage. We need action NOW.
Philadelphia tomorrow can be much more than it is today. We can get our variegated neighborhoods together with governmental and economic interests to create a future that will grow our city and enrich our lives.
June 25, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=271401#post271401
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I wrote the bill raising the minimum wage to $7.15. I initiated the bill raising the minimum wage to $7.15. I am the prime sponsor and chief public advocate of raising the minimum wage to $7.15. I led the effort to gather facts which helped persuade Governor Rendell to seek to raise the minimum wage to $7.15. In 1988, I got the state to raise to raise the minimum wage above the federal minimum wage for the first time. People thought I was crazy when I first started talking about the state's power to raise the minimum wage; the vast majority of people thought that only the federal government had that power.In 1987, Sandy Starobin, then the well-known KYW Harrisburg correspondent--the Tony Romeo of his day--caught me with a whole bunch on obscure topics on a day in which he and and I working but the Capitol was officially closed. He pointed to several titles, and asked why I was reading them."These are books about the Progressive Era, the era of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson," I explained. "In the progressive era, states--not including Pennsylvania--raised the minimum wage, and the federal government followed in the Administration of Franklin Roosevelt. We ought to be following the lead of the Progressive era states."Starobin rolled his eyes. "You're working much too hard," he said.Within two years, a scaled down version of to raise the minimum wage was law in Pennsylvania, and that helped build up pressure to raise the federal minimum wage early in the Clinton Administration.Starobin rolled his eyes.
May 21, 2006
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?p=253378#post253378
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Make no mistake, without state legislative action, the minimum wage is being repealed. It is being repealed by time, inflation and political indifference. Support for the status quo is support for repealing the minimum wage.I want to thank the Committee Chairman, Senator Scarnati, for holding this hearing in Philadelphia today. I sincerely hope it indicates a willingness on the part of the Senate leadership to consider a meaningful increase in the minimum wage during the legislative session this fall. As I stated in my letter to House and Senate leaders on August 10th, “I do believe that the House and the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, can come to a quick agreement this autumn to pass a significant minimum wage increase in a bi-partisan fashion, if we are given a chance to vote on it.”While I am sincerely appreciative of this opportunity to appear before this committee as the sponsor of House Bill 257, I do not believe this issue needs extensive and drawn out hearings to further define the issue or delay legislative action. The arguments, pro and con, have not really changed in decades; only the political climate has changed. In the past twenty years the national political climate has mostly worked against low wage workers and their families. But today we have a chance in Pennsylvania.I believe the votes are there for a significant increase--or more accurately, a restoration of the minimum wage-- if the Senate majority leadership will permit a clean vote. The legislative history on this issue illustrates the importance of the State Senate. In 2001 despite opposition from Governor Ridge, all the House Democrats were joined by a majority of the House Republican Caucus to pass a $1.00 minimum wage increase by an overwhelming vote of 152 to 43. In 1996, a Republican controlled House voted overwhelmingly to support a substantial minimum wage increase. Unfortunately in both cases, the Republican leadership in the Senate refused to consider the wage increases. Today we have a governor who has pledged to sign a minimum wage increase and, I strongly believe, continuing bipartisan support in the House.Mr. Chairman, your personal leadership and that of your colleagues here is critical to see that there is a full legislative vote on the minimum wage by the General Assembly. The need is great, and legislative action is long overdue. We now have a choice-- to restore the minimum wage or allow it to be repealed. The stakes could not be higher.Throughout the 1960's and 1970's the minimum wage held a family of three out of poverty. But since the 1980's the minimum wage has ceased to function as a living wage. If the minimum wage at its height in 1968 had been indexed for inflation, it would be just under $8.60 today. The buying power of the minimum wage has fallen to its lowest point since the late 1940s. In 1980, a student could work his or her way through college on a 20 hour week job. Today a 50 hour a week job wouldn’t pay the college bills even if it were possible to do both job and school work (with a share of the blame going to decline in minimum wage and a share to tuition outrunning inflation).College may be out of reach for minimum wage families but simple living is also. The United States Department of Health and Human Services’ 2005 Poverty Guideline for a family of three is $16,090. A full time minimum wage worker earns only $10,712, assuming he or she works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. That is $5,378 below, or just 66.6% of, that poverty line. A one parent, one child family falls $2,118 below the poverty line for a family of two (or just 83.5%) of $12,830. This is the lowest the minimum wage has been in terms of the poverty line since the inception of the federal poverty guideline in 1966. My legislation, HB 257, would come very close to restoring the minimum wage to its 1980 level as would Senator Tartaglione’s Senate Bill 369. Other proposals at least offer positive steps in that direction.Some say this should be a federal issue—and I agree. But it does not follow that if the Federal government fails to protect our most vulnerable citizen that we must compound this failure. It is an issue of basic economic justice. The minimum wage was first a state issue in the early 1900s. The New Deal made it a federal issue. The promise of the minimum wage was kept for the decades of the 1960s and 70s, but federal inaction in the 1980s and 90s again made the minimum wage a state issue.Since the 1980s the federal government has only acted to grant minimum wage increases after substantial pressure from the states—and those increases have not restored the buying power of the minimum wage to its previous levels. Today, 17 states plus the District of Columbia have enacted substantially higher minimum wages than the federal minimum of $5.15. Those states represent nearly 45% of all Americans. It’s past time for Pennsylvania to join these states. States all around us are acting. My legislation to raise our minimum wage to $7.15 by 2007 is intentionally patterned after laws in neighboring New York and New Jersey. Neighboring Delaware has already raised its minimum wage to $6.15—an amount higher than the first step envisioned in my bill. The Maryland legislature recently passed a $6.15 to take effect this month, only to have it vetoed by their Governor. The Maryland legislature is widely expected to override that veto when it returns to session in January.These surrounding states have acted to value work. The work of our citizens should not be valued less than theirs, and our families and children certainly do not deserve less.As I mentioned earlier, the arguments have not changed much on this issue over the decades. Some conservatives and business leaders have always opposed the minimum wage for philosophical and economic reasons. They are perfectly happy to allow the minimum wage to be repealed in stages by inflation. We still hear the arguments that increasing the minimum wage will increase unemployment among poor although the evidence has never been very clear on that point. More recent economic work helps explain why the traditional economic expectations of job loss failed to materialize. According to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington D.C,“New economic models that look specifically at low-wage labor markets help explain why there is little evidence of job loss associated with minimum wage increases. These models recognize that employers may be able to absorb some of the costs of a wage increase through higher productivity, lower recruiting and training costs, decreased absenteeism, and increased worker morale.”It is common sense that workers who feel treated fairly have a more positive attitude about their work. Conversely, devaluing work often feeds an attitude of “pretend work for pretend pay.”This year the politically conservative Commonwealth Foundation called minimum wage supporters “the economically ignorant.” In a widely circulated release entitled “Car Wash Blues” they tried to show how the minimum wage would adversely affect a mythical Philadelphia car wash paying 5.15 an hour—one of the problems with their analysis was that the median hourly wage of people employed “cleaning vehicles” in Philadelphia is $8.30 an hour according to May 2004 Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) data from the U.S. Department of Labor – already a much higher wage than is envisioned by any legislation.Bad examples aside, even the Commonwealth Foundation knows, and has occasionally admitted, that classical economists are not united in their opposition to the minimum wage on theoretical job loss grounds, as minimum wage opponents would have you believe. Last October more than 562 prominent economists--including 4 Nobel Prize winners in economics and 7 past presidents of the American Economic Association-- joined in endorsing an increase in the Federal minimum wage to $7.00. In their endorsement, these economists said, ``We believe that a modest increase in the minimum wage would improve the well-being of low-wage workers and would not have the adverse effects that critics have claimed.'' They go on to state: “As economists who are concerned about the problems facing low-wage workers, we believe the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2004's proposed phased-in increase in the federal minimum wage to $7.00 falls well within the range of options where the benefits to the labor market, workers, and the overall economy would be positive.” Reasonable, local minimum wage increases have also found support among economists. Last year 118 economists, many of national prominence, endorsed a Santa Monica, California, living wage referendum that set a minimum wage of $10.50 for the city’s hotel- tourist industry. In short, many economists believe that the positive effects of an increase far outweigh any negative impacts.Who are the workers that would benefit from a two dollar increase? Using national data the Economic Policy Institute estimates that 5.8% of the national workforce would benefit from a federal increase in the minimum wage to $7.25. (a little more than provided for in my legislation) Of these workers, 72.1% are adults and 60.6% are women. Close to half (43.9%) work full time and another third (34.5%) work between 20 and 34 hours per week. More than one-third (35%) of those workers are parents of children under age 18, including 760,000 single mothers. The average minimum wage worker brings home about half of his or her family's weekly earnings.Since the state covers more workers than the feds and other factors—such as possibly a higher percentage of minimum wage jobs, and many other states have already covered their employees with a higher minimum wage-- the Pennsylvania numbers are higher. The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry reports that 7.9% of the Pennsylvania’s hourly workforce or 257,000 would benefit from a one dollar per hour increase in the state’s minimum wage. 528,000 Pennsylvanians or 16.3% of the state’s hourly workforce would benefit from a two dollar per hour increase in the state’s minimum wage.House Bill 257, which I have sponsored along with 79 of my House colleagues, would raise the minimum wage by $2.00 in three steps-- $6.00/hr effective 60 days after the passage of the legislation; $6.75/hr effective January 1, 2006; $7.15/hr effective January 1, 2007. After the initial increases, my legislation provides for modest cost of living increases based on the federal consumer price index so that low wage workers will not again suffer form the political indifference that has made this minimum wage struggle so long and difficult. Without a COLA, repeal of the minimum wage by inflation will begin anew the day after it is enacted.Economists may argue, but as policy makers we must decide if our society truly values work or if it is just a slogan when it comes time to cut welfare benefits. We decry the feminization of poverty even knowing that it is not a coincidence that women are overwhelmingly the most likely caregiver in families with only one supporting parent and 60% of minimum wage workers are women. How can we say we value work when a minimum wage working mother with one child –a family of two— finds that they are thousands of dollars below the poverty line even if childcare and healthcare are affordable and available? What is the value of work if even two full-time workers can not keep a family of five out of poverty? How can we say we value work when a modest one bedroom apartment in Pennsylvania is far out of reach for a full-time minimum wage worker. How do we proclaim the importance of a college or post-secondary education when we know it is out of reach of so many families? The message we are sending is that we don’t value work. According to a Hart Research Poll taken this summer, half of all workers say their income is falling behind. It is time for us to take notice and the minimum wage is a good place to start.The minimum wage is not a federal issue, it is a fairness issue. This is an issue of simple social justice. As it is bad federal policy to allow a small family with a full-time wage earner working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks out of the year, to live in poverty. It is equally bad state policy. Today's minimum wage is not a living wage and it is not a fair wage for Pennsylvania's families.Please oppose the overt policy of allowing inflation to repeal the minimum wage over time. I beg you to do all in your power to allow a vote in the Senate to restore the minimum wage in Pennsylvania. This is not a time for delay. The spike in energy costs being experienced by all of us is going to hit low wage workers hardest of all. Low wage workers and their families more than deserve a raise, they desperately need a raise.
September 6, 2005
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:EtCba1k3k7EJ:21stcenturypennsylvania.blogspot.com/+%22mark+b+cohen%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=162
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There are conflicting signals as to how much resistance there will be in the Senate. One top Senate aide said they will not pass it at all in this session; another top Senate aide said $6.30 tops; a leader of the opposition though told an Evening Bulletin writer that he expected the Senate to cave and pass the House bill. One cannot know with absolute certainty what will or will not work. But just as one can truthfully tell a student that he or she is highly likely to be more successful with hard work and discipline than without it, so one can truthfully tell activists that focusing on the Republican Senators and the people in their districts is the best strategy.Keep talking about the minimum wage and how much people need an increase. Although the resistance to a minimum wage increase certainly indicates a lot of bad things about a lot of people, keep the focus on the minimum wage increase and not on other areas of societal injustice, tactics of minimum wage advocates, police response to minimum wage advocates, or other interesting, important but attention diverting side issues.When you have over 80% of the people on your side in poll after poll, you have an enormous advantage in hammering home your message if you just stick to it and avoid being distracted by tactics, sensationalism, and frustration.In 1988, I worked with the Philadelphia Unemployment project and we finally got a 10% or so raise in the minimum wage, from $3.35 to $3.65. We helped parley that, in concert with many others, into increasing the federal minimum to $5.15. This year, the conservative resistance position is $6.30, an increase of over 20%.We have come a long way, and are going to go much further.
April, 2006
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:lGrZMeyI6B4J:asmokefilledroom.blogspot.com/2006/04/great-news-on-minimum-wage.html+%22mark+b+cohen%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=396
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Earlier this week, the Maryland legislature passed an increase in the minimum wage over the veto of the governor. With that act, 18 states plus the District of Columbia, representing over 46% of all Americans, now have minimum wages significantly higher than the federal government.
If Pennsylvania passed one of the bills being considered by the general assembly, over half the nation’s population would be given far more protection than the federal government has been willing or able to give to our workers and their families.
Pennsylvania is now surrounded on three sides by higher minimum wages. The ever weak argument that fast food restaurants and other services industries will be flying across state lines to avoid higher wages now looks even more ridiculous. There are no more excuses.
There are no more excuses for the Republican leadership to bottle up every minimum wage bill. There are no more excuses to justify paying sub poverty wages to working people and their families. There are no more excuses to justify college student wages that make it impossible for them work their way through college as students in my generation did. There are no more excuses why we should force seniors to work longer hours at a declining minimum wage just to supplement meager pensions or social security payments so they can live with the dignity they deserve.
The minimum wage should not be a sub poverty wage for a small family of three or for a senior citizen or a college student. How many children lived, and live in, poverty because of legislative indifference; how many families broke up because of the indignity of poverty and financial stress; how many seniors worked longer hours than they should have, when they should have been home enjoying retirement years with spouses and grandchildren; how may college dreams were postponed or canceled or never even attempted because there was no money?
Pennsylvanians desperately need a minimum wage that provides dignity instead of poverty. There is no excuse for giving them anything less, and we should be ashamed of ourselves for taking so long to restore the minimum wage.
January 19, 2006
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:iwNt06x9JY8J:www.pahouse.com/cohen/minimumwage/govspressconfremarks.htm+%22mark+b+cohen%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=19
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Unfortuntately, the target audience we have to persuade is Republican members of the legislature because the Republicans have a majority in both Houses. Unfortunately, our target audience is not passionate admirers of Martin Luther King but those who tend to take his words out of context to oppose affirmative action and abortion rights.
Law and order has been a key theme of the Republican Party for decades: figures as diverse as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, both George Bushes, Arlen Specter, and Tom Ridge have won elections on this theme.
Some Republican somewhere may have won an election on support for civil disobedience, but I cannot name such a person. If such a person exists, he or she is not a visible Republican leader.
The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News have once or twice each endorsed a minimum wage hike. They are virtually alone in this area. Nor has their been a great rush among newspaper columnists to fill this void: to the best of my knowledge no columnist has yet devoted a column to urging an increase in the minimum wage, and John Baer is the only columnist to half-heartedly endorse it at the bottom of a long column dealing with other matters.
We are also hurt by continuously declining number of Pennsylvanians who are members of labor unions: that number is now down to 750,000. When I become Chairman of the House Labor Relations Committee in 1983, the AFL-CIO alone had 1.4 million members in Pennsylvania, and there were hundreds of thousands of other union members not affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
Yes, it is frustrating to advocate for progressive change when the media and the dominant political power structure are stacked against us. But our best chance of victory is to keep the debate focused on the minimum wage and the vast majority of Pennsylvanians who support it, not on the tactics of minimum wage backers when we know from past experience that these tactics are not productive in Pennsylvania.
The Republicans know how to read public opinion polls; they know that other states have passed a minimum wage increase and virtually all other states have efforts under way to push for a minimum wage increase; they know that key members of the Bush Adminstration favor a minimum wage increase. They and their backers will utimately yield. But I would much rather have Pennsylvania be the 20th or 21st state to raise the minimum wage (which is what would happen if the legislature acts soon) than be the 45th or 50th state to raise the minimum wage some years down the road.
April 4, 2006
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:8iHfJSw4JzsJ:www.stier.net/blog/2006/04/03/is-civil-disobedience-justified/+%22MARK+B+COHEN%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=50
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On April 10, 2006 Arkansas became the 20th state to raise the minimum wage over $5.15, coming in with $6.25 effective on October 1, 2006. On April 11, 2006, Maine became the 10th State to have a minimum wage of $7.00 or over, hitting that figure on October 1, 2007. Maine was already over the federal minimum at the time.
With Arkansas’ action, A MAJORITY OF ALL AMERICANS NOW LIVE IN STATES WITH A MINIMUM WAGE HIGHER THAN THE FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE. Once this fact becomes widely known, pressure in the other states should increase.
I deeply appreciate this blog’s strong coverage of the minimum wage issue and your kind words about me. With all the effort that has already been generated to influence the Senate, and all the effort that will be generated in the future, I think we have an excellent chance of raising Pennsylvania’s minimum wage this year.
Tennessee may beat us and become the 21st state. If we don’t act before the general election, Ohio, Nevada, Arizona, and Montana will also beat us, because they are highly likely to pass referenda on this issue this November. But one way or another, we should prevail and get low income Pennsylvanians a raise in salary that they deserve.
April 18, 2006
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:WBOrdCPB4VEJ:skaroff.com/blog/index.php/2006/04/07/penna-assembly-passes-minimum-wage-hike/+%22mark+b+cohen%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=291
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I welcome the Maryland legislature’s final approval today of a $1-per-hour increase in the minimum wage in that state. The new minimum rate in Maryland will be $6.15 per hour.Maryland’s Democratic legislature overrode a veto by the Republican governor, so the wage hike will become law there. Maryland is set to join the 18 states nationwide with minimum wages higher than the 9-year-old federal minimum wage. The Maryland law will take effect in 30 days. Pennsylvania should take the cue and be the next.The Maryland legislature’s affirmative vote to increase the state’s minimum wage to $6.15 will mean that 46.3 percent of the nation’s population is protected by a minimum wage higher than the federal standard.If Pennsylvania would pass one of its minimum wage proposals, which are currently being bottled up by Republican leadership, more than 50 percent of the nation’s population would be protected by a wage higher than the outdated federal rate, which has been eroded by nine years of inflation.House and Senate Democrats will renew their efforts to increase the state’s minimum wage when the General Assembly returns to Harrisburg later this month. Unlike Maryland, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Edward Rendell strongly supports raising Pennsylvania's minimum wage.With the addition of Maryland, four states bordering Pennsylvania will have minimum wages higher than the federal rate. The others are New Jersey, Delaware and New York. If you would like to learn more our efforts to raise the minimum wage and the need for this change, you can visit my home page at http://www.pahouse.net/cohen/MinimumWage.asp or one of bills I have introduced to raise the minimum wage, H.B. 2021.
September 21, 2005
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:EtCba1k3k7EJ:21stcenturypennsylvania.blogspot.com/+%22mark+b+cohen%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=162
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As a longtime state legislative advocate of raising Pennsylvania's minimum wage who is thrilled that New York has now done what we should have done years ago, I love the phrase "wage depression." It is descriptive, evocative, and thoroughly accurate.
I look forward to working with Inequality.org and its members to change state and federal policies to reduce the scourge of wage depression so that the middle class does not devolve into an exclusive private club.
January 4, 2005
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:iMnQaxUnpgMJ:inequality.typepad.com/board/2004/10/the_great_wage_.html+%22mark+b+cohen%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=232
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posted by Comment on Pennsylvania Legislation at 10:10 AM
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