Living on the minimum wage is difficult, to put it mildly. According to the Economic Policy Institute's Heidi Shierholz,
At its peak in 1968, a full-time worker earning the minimum wage made $18,890 in May 2009 dollars, enough to keep a family of three over the poverty line. With a minimum wage of $7.25, a full-time worker earning the minimum wage will make $14,962, about a $4,000 pay cut from the 1968 level and well below the poverty threshold.
The inability of today's minimum wage to alleviate poverty is even more striking when one considers that poverty researchers regard the poverty threshold as currently calculated to be vastly outdated and an inadequate measure of the income needed to make ends meet. Poverty experts often use twice the poverty line as a more accurate threshold for material deprivation. Another measure, developed by the Economic Policy Institute, is the "basic family budget," or the amounts a family needs to feed, shelter, and clothe itself, get to work and school, and subsist in 21st century America. It is a paycheck-to-paycheck no-frills budget that includes no savings for retirement or college, no restaurant meals, and no funds for emergencies. A typical basic family budget for a family with one parent and two children is $40,273, about three times the income of a full-time minimum-wage worker.
So imagine you're a minimum-wage worker...and you're not even getting the minimum wage. A new study by Ruth Milkman, Ana Luz Gonzalez, and Victor Narro of the UCLA Institute on Labor and Employment found that in Los Angeles, almost 30% of low-wage workers had been paid less than the minimum wage in the preceding week. And we're not talking pennies here:
The minimum wage violations were not trivial in magnitude: 63.3 percent of workers were underpaid by more than $1.00 per hour.
You may remember that Arnold Schwarzenegger sued John Chiang in state court to follow his order, and his dream, of cutting all state worker salaries to the minimum wage while we wait for a budget. The court date was set for September 12, which salvaged the salaries for the month of August. Chiang's next move was to partner with some labor allies and move the lawsuit into the federal courts. This not only would delay the question of whether or not Chiang needs to follow the order, but removes a serious liability problem for the state, because if they slashed salaries per a state court order and then had it overturned by the feds, they would be on the hook for expensive penalties and payments.
This afternoon, controller spokesman Jacob Roper delivered this bit of news via e-mail to the State Worker:
Since the case has moved to the Federal court, the Sept 12th superior court hearing will not be held. A group of labor organizations has filed a motion to move the case from the Eastern Federal district to the Northern district, and a hearing on that motion is scheduled for October 31.
Roper also restated the controller's position that cutting salaries to minimum wage would be a massive, time-consuming reprogramming task, "so there is no reason to believe that minimum wage checks would be issued anytime soon."
While the lingering budget crisis is still incredibly painful for all manner of Californians, with missed payments sure to come if nothing is settled by the end of the month, at least the state workers have John Chiang in their corner, fighting for their interests. And this is mirrored by the stirring testimony of everyday workers who are losing their benefits and the control of their lives as the Yacht Party turns up its nose and turns its back on the people. John Chiang is doing his part, and Republican rank and file citizens are putting on the pressure in selected districts; the only way to ultimately win this fight is at the ballot box.
One of the few bright spots of this 8-week budget roller coaster has been the leadership of State Controller John Chiang, who stood up and simply said "no" to the shock doctrine tactics of the Governor and his attempts to slash state worker salaries to the minimum wage and eliminate the jobs of thousands of others. Schwarzenegger's talk of compromise among the legislature and right-wing Republicans didn't extend to state workers, and he took Chiang to court to force him to uphold his executive order. As a result of Chiang at least offering resistance, the workers have a reprieve for August.
State workers targeted by a gubernatorial order to cut their pay to federal minimum wage have dodged that bullet - at least for August.
A Sacramento Superior Court judge Wednesday set a hearing to decide the pay dispute for Sept. 12, too late to affect this month's state payroll.
Judge Timothy Frawley's timetable ensures that 145,000 state employees and an additional 30,000 managers and supervisors will receive full pay for August.
This doesn't happen unless Chiang goes to back for those employees. And the grassroots in California is grateful. Frank Russo reports on a meeting in Oakland:
California Controller John Chiang spoke to the Alameda County Democratic Lawyer's Club yesterday at a small restaurant in Oakland and had a lot to say about the state employee pay order. But he had a lot more to say, about his approach to government, helping average Californians, and his values and philosophy about government while speaking for over a half hour without notes and then taking questions.
From the beginning, he was treated as a rock star-introduced by club President Meredith Brown, as "the man who stood up to the man." He covered a lot of territory-and was paid rapt attention as he challenged this body of lawyers to continue their good work for the betterment of society. He even worked in themes from the Obama campaign, as he prepares to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Denver and appear on the national stage. Josh Richman, a reporter and "blogger" for the Oakland Tribune attended this meeting and you can see his write up for a feel of what transpired as well.
Read the whole thing for Chiang's comments, which are great. Hopefully he'll repeat them at the DNC this week. Amazing what can happen to Democrats if they stand up for themselves, isn't it?
UPDATE: The big issue, as Russo details in a separate post, is making sure this case is decided in federal court and not state court. Otherwise, California could be on the hook for billions in fines. Read the post at the link.
Just a quick update on the latest on Gov. Schwarzenegger's slashing of state worker salaries. After John Chiang refused to carry out the executive order, today Arnold sued him.
Schwarzenegger's Department of Personnel Administration filed a lawsuit against Chiang late Monday in Sacramento County Superior Court. The suit says the state Constitution and several sections of law prohibit the state from paying full wages without approval of a budget.
"Except where payments are self-executing under the California Constitution, the state has no authority to pay state employees their full salaries where it does not have an appropriation such as in this case, where there is no budget for fiscal year 2008-2009," the lawsuit says.
Chiang, a Democrat, has balked at making the pay cuts, saying the state has enough money to cover its needs into October.
"The governor has created a solution to a problem that does not exist...," Chiang said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed.
This has become less about fiscal responsibility during a budget crisis and more about an authoritarian demanding his way. As for the original intention of the order, to force a compromise on the budget, that's, er, not happening.
Schwarzenegger met Monday with the Legislature's Democratic leaders to try to reach a budget compromise.
"We're still talking. We haven't thrown anything at each other," Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, said after emerging from the governor's office.
Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't just vow to keep taxes low, he ran an entire campaign in 2006 based on scaring people into believing that his opponent would raise taxes by $18 billion dollars. None of it was true, but he hammered away at it. In the one and only debate he chided Phil Angelides, saying "you love taxes" and other nonsense. Dan Weintraub even remembered this spiel:
"They get into their car, they're taxed. They go to the gas station, they're taxed. They go for lunch, they're taxed. This goes on all day long. Tax, tax, tax, tax, tax. Even when they go to bed, you can go to bed in fear that you are going to be taxed while you're sleeping, that there is a sleeping tax."
The admission of defeat, that there's no way to balance this budget without revenue increases, is truly astonishing. What's more, the broad-based sales tax he's proposing, the most regressive imaginable, really would tax Californians at virtually every point of the day. He's become a caricature (if he wasn't one already).
The proposal amounts to an admission of failure. Running in 2003 as a novice politician after careers as a bodybuilder and actor, Schwarzenegger thought he could cut taxes, control spending and balance the budget, ending what he called "those crazy deficits." But the fiscal and economic problem was more complicated than he knew, and the politics far more vexing.
Schwarzenegger did cut taxes. He campaigned on a pledge to roll back the vehicle license fee, or "car tax," which his predecessor, Gray Davis, had tripled. And on Schwarzenegger's first day in office, the new governor issued an executive order reducing the tax by two-thirds.
But controlling spending proved far more difficult, as, ironically, that first tax-cut order foretold. The car tax against which Schwarzenegger had railed, while controlled by the state, was actually a source of revenue for local governments. And so when Schwarzenegger reduced it, he also made good on a pledge to pay cities and counties what was then $4billion a year to make up for what they lost when he cut the car tax.
The state, however, did not have that money to spare, and the payments to cities and counties added to the deficit Schwarzenegger had vowed to eliminate. That obligation to local government has since grown to $6 billion - not coincidentally the same amount that would be raised by the sales tax increase Schwarzenegger now supports.
The VLF was the original sin here, but not the only one. The problem is structural and the VLF would have only delayed the inevitable. The truth is that the state is only built for success, never for a downturn like we're currently having. And so this results in gimmicks like slashing state employee salaries and putting them in the middle of a budget spat, or borrowing more and more to pass the deficit on to our children and grandchildren.
(The latest on the wage cuts, by the way, is that the governor is demanding that his order be followed, which John Chiang will refuse, leading to a likely lawsuit. Chiang really is a hero in all of this, and he's filling a leadership vacuum. Marcus Breton has a nice profile today.)
Schwarzenegger has never concerned himself with the business of governing - he preferred slogans to policy. And with the policy going to crap, the slogans sound more hollow - especially the one that goes "tax, tax, tax, tax, tax."
It's really the ultimate way for this state employee wage cut to end up - turns out that the payroll generation is so antiquated, they can't change it to reflect the new salary structure for months.
State Controller John Chiang said Monday an antiquated state computer system makes it impossible to adjust the state payroll quickly to issue minimum-wage checks to state workers. He said it would take at least six months to make the change.
The Democratic controller has vowed to defy Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's executive order directing the state to pay workers the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour until a budget agreement is reached. He has previously asserted that the Republican governor's order is based on an untested 2003 state Supreme Court legal opinion and that he will continue issuing full paychecks to state employees.
But in a meeting with The Bee Capitol Bureau on Monday, Chiang said that even if Schwarzenegger's legal reasoning were sound, the state could not logistically retool its outdated payroll system in a matter of weeks, as the governor has asked. If the change were eventually made, Chiang also said it would take an additional nine to 10 months to issue checks to employees for their full back pay.
We've seen this in LA County with errors in paychecks to teachers, which resulted in major repayments and "treble" damages, which require the government to pay three times as much in damages to those affected.
Of course, the state could always update their payroll systems - which would require more revenue. Or they could just throw more manpower at the problem - which would require hiring those state workers that Arnold tried to fire (which agencies are promptly not firing).
It's really a tragicomedy over there in Sacramento.
I'm preaching to the choir here when I say that laying off all those state workers was penny-wise and pound-foolish. Another sickening facet of all that is that Arnold and his cronies don't even know just how pound-foolish it was. Well, they know it was a bit fool-hardy, they just aren't sure how much. Because, you know, they didn't really study that:
But state officials said Thursday that they couldn't predict how much state services will suffer now that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has laid off an estimated 10,300 temporary workers.
***
"I think that whenever you have layoffs and you do that, it will have an impact," Schwarzenegger said. "... In the private sector, we read every day stories where companies have to lay off. That means there is less productivity there. So we have to tighten our belt, everyone has to tighten our belt." (SacBee 8/1/08)
Everybody has to tighten our belt, yet that doesn't extend to the entirety of the state? Sure, we have to tighten our belts, but we can't sacrifice the strength of our government. There is no further "fat" to cut from the bone. Yet, I guess we'll just roll the dice and hope that it doesn't burn us too bad. Pun intended.
I was on a conference call earlier with State Controller John Chiang and Rep. Hilda Solis about the Governor's callous executive order, and both delivered predictably strong comments. Chiang, who has told the governor he will refuse to comply with the order, blasted Schwarzenegger, saying "state workers shouldn't be put in the middle of a political battle," and that this was a nakedly punitive attempt against California's state employee unions, which the whom the Governor has always held a grudge (they helped deep-six his "reform" agenda in 2005). Rep. Solis was even more outraged, saying "let's put him on the federal minimum wage, and get rid of the special interests paying for his hotel room across the street from the Capitol, and see how he likes it." She rocks.
Chiang has made his decision, and now only litigation can force him to carry out the Governor's order (and Chiang discouraged litigation as a "waste of time.") But we expect these kind of statements from Democrats. Take a look at this one from Republican Greg Aghazarian:
"While I appreciate the Governor's leadership on this budget crisis, I cannot support reducing the salaries of our state employees to minimum wage.
If our state workers had the power to pass a budget, then it might be appropriate to hold them accountable, but that's not where the responsibility lies according to our State Constitution. I cannot predict when a budget will be passed, but I do know this, when it does happen it will be because we worked to achieve bipartisan solutions.
I understand what the Governor is trying to accomplish with this action, but I must respectfully disagree and urge the Governor to reconsider his executive order."
Now, Aghazarian is talking out of both sides of his mouth. He's trying to win a Senate election against Lois Wolk in SD-05, and he wants to be seen as some kind of moderate when his record suggests the opposite. But the fact that he's gone off the reservation means that there's a lot of pressure to come out against the Governor on this one, putting him alone on an island of his own making. It's important to keep pounding away and make him completely unpopular and unable to help his party in the fall as a result of this stupid, heartless action.
The Governor has set up a Web site to answer employee questions about the wage cut. Predictably, it has no interactive function. If he allowed comments on it the server would be down.
OK, so check this out. Arnold signs the executive order slashing state employee salaries to $6.55 an hour, the federal minimum wage.
At the same time, he's agreed to host a fundraiser in three weeks with Oregon Senator Gordon Smith (R). Here's the invite, courtesy his Democratic opponent Jeff Merkley:
The bottom of the invite says "Host and Photo Opportunities at $10,000 give/raise."
The annual salary for a state worker under the federal, based on a 40-hour work week and a 50-week year, is $13,100.
So Arnold thinks the cost of getting a picture with him is roughly equivalent to the cost of working for an entire year running his state government.
As we brace for the Governor's executive order slashing state employee salaries, the Senate Governmental Organization committee wants some answers.
Anticipating that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today will sign an executive order to cut state worker pay and terminate about 22,000 temporary, part-time and contract jobs, the Senate's Governmental Organization committee has called on Schwarzenegger to explain his rationale. The committee, chaired by Senator Dean Florez (D-Schafter), has scheduled the hearing for Monday at 10 a.m. Schwarzenegger is invited. Controller John Chiang and leaders of state worker unions will testify, according to a press advisory.
Florez, who sought the advisory opinion from the legislative counsel about this move (which showed that John Chiang has more than enough constitutional authority to deny the wage cut from going through), said in his press statement: "I think the Governor owes the public a full explanation as to why he has singled out the state's workforce with his executive order to cut their salaries."
Right on. Which is why you should keep calling Arnold and ruin his birthday by demanding an explanation of your own.
This is a good move by Florez, both from the standpoint of policy and politics.
The CDP sent out a message from Controller John Chiang about the proposed wage cut to state workers:
When I received word that Gov. Schwarzenegger was proposing to use California's state workers as pawns in the budget battle by cutting their pay to the federal minimum wage of $6.55, I said civil servants should not bear the brunt of the budget stalemate.
Since then, thousands of Californians have joined with me to protest the Governor's proposed -- and needless -- order to slash the pay of California's public servants. I want you to know I will stand strong against the Governor's threats.
Forcing public servants to involuntarily loan the State cash by foregoing their hard-earned paychecks puts an untenable burden on our teachers, health care workers and those who provide critical public services. That is just wrong.
Excellent. Chiang is really coming out like a hero in this.
Taking another tack, Lt. Governor John Garamendi sent a letter to the Governor (via the SacBee's new state worker blog:
Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:
I write to you today regarding the proposed executive order to reduce the minimum wage of 200,000 of California's state workers to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour.
As you contemplate signing this executive order, please ask yourself - how would you feed and care for your family on $262 per week ($1,048 per month)? How would your hardworking staff fare on these minimal earnings? Could you and your family do it for one week?
It is our duty, as elected officials of this great State, to find solutions to the many challenging problems that face California, such as the state budget. Those solutions should always look to improve the quality of life for all Californians, not impede it.
Please walk a week in a state worker's shoes before you sign this executive order and imagine yourself and your family surviving on $262 per week.
This is reminiscent of the SEIU's "Walk A Day in My Shoes" program, as well as the challenge taken by members of Congress earlier this year to live on a food stamp budget for a week. It gets replicated because it works. Garamendi is taking the right approach to humanize the budget crisis.
It does appear that our state Controller has basically said "No Dice" to the governor's plan to punish state workers for his own leadership failures.
While the governor is poised to order the cuts on Monday, state Controller John Chiang, who is responsible for disbursing state workers' paychecks, said Thursday that he will refuse to go along with the governor, setting up a political standoff and a possible legal fight.
"The authority to issue people's paychecks is mine. I have both constitutional and statutory authority," said Chiang, a Democrat. "Frankly, (the governor) is just trying to make me do something that's improper and illegal."
The same exact thing happened in 2003, with Steve Westly refusing to cut salaries as then-Gov. Gray Davis requested. And Westly got his way until the budget was eventually signed on August 2. This basically throws the whole issue into the courts and delays the implementation of any salary cut. And that's a legal fight I relish having. For too long the chief executive of the state - and in some cases, the legislature - has absolutely overstepped their authority with regard to fiscal matters. The most egregious example is their raiding municipal government and transit funds to fill in the cracks of the budget deficit, which leads to ridiculous outcomes like cutting bus service at a time when mass transit should be expanding.
But Chiang standing with workers and holding on to his authority as a statewide elected official is just as important. We elect a governor, not a king, and this encroachment on the jurisdiction of other constitutional officers is illegal and increasingly dangerous. State workers who are rallying against the proposed cuts should understand that they have a champion in John Chiang, and that his decision deserves their support. The California Democratic Party has a petition you can sign to stand with the Controller in this effort.
UPDATE: As informed by the CDP, State Sen. Dean Florez asked the Legislative Counsel for an opinion on Schwarzenegger's authority to slash wages, and the Counsel agreed that he didn't have it:
SACRAMENTO - Senator Dean Florez, D-Shafter, sought to alleviate the fears of state workers contemplating how to pay their bills on the federal minimum wage, while heading off a potential lawsuit between the Governor and Controller at a time the state can least afford it, by releasing a Legislative Counsel opinion stating that the Governor does not have the power to order such a cut to workers' salaries.
"If the Governor really intended this as more than a 'motivational' gimmick, he clearly did not do his homework," said Florez. "He is making reckless and false threats against the people who keep our state running, causing undue grief to innocent people -- many of whom are already struggling to get by - and I really believe he owes them an apology."
The Children's Defense Fund's (CDF) Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. CDF began in 1973 and is a private, nonprofit organization supported by foundation and corporate grants and individual donations. CDF has never taken government funds.
Annually, the CDF Action Council compiles a Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard for U.S. Senators and Representatives. In the Scorecard, 100% represents an excellent voting record on children's issues while 0% represents a terrible record in the estimation of CDF. Sen. John McCain 'achieved' a score of 10%, the lowest of any U.S. Senator. McCain supported only one CDF position, opposed one other CDF position, and voted 'Not Voting' on the other eight bills. Either McCain is anti-children or is yet another absentee Republican leader when it comes to important issues.
Anti-war movements have their bases set in popular culture. Political leaders will co-opt the popular culture in order to shape their images and to present their messages. Being a pop culture leader in an anti-war movement is not without its peril. Being the target of pop culture is similarly not without its peril.
The purveyors and icons of popular culture have to climb aboard the Peace Train (thank you, Dolly Parton) in order for an anti-war movement to advance. We saw this in large measure during the Vietnam Civil War when artists like Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and others wrote and performed anti-war rhetoric. Norman Whitfield wrote the song "War" and wanted the the Temptations to perform it. However, apparently in response to the conservative following of the Temptations, only Edwin Starr of the Temptations and Whitfield recorded the single so as not to alienate the fan base.
More recently, we have seen the results of The Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines making an off-handed remark and Michael Moore's film-making which were excoriated and blown out of proportion by the Repugnants. More specifically, fans of Maines, Emily Robison, and Martie Maguire were encouraged to destroy the group's albums and CDs following Maine's remarks about the embarrassment which is the so-called Pres. Bush. However, The Dixie Chicks kept its stride and bounced back with with an amazing anti-war song, "Not Ready To Make Nice," one of my favorite songs of all time. The song and album won five Grammy Awards at the 49th Grammy Awards Ceremony. I also personally credit The Dixie Chicks for helping to significantly turn the country away from the dominion of Darkness. Michael Moore has similarly risked his life and standing in the community in order to present Truth to Power with his documentary films including "911." As with The Dixie Chicks, Moore has suffered at the hands of the Repugnants and their lackeys.
Now, Pink has joined the fray. I love her song and lyrics "Dear Mr. President" that features the Indigo Girls and adore the accompanying video as well. If you have not heard the song, check it out at i-tunes. If you have not seen the video, it is now playing on Time Warner Cable On Demand, at least in the Beaumont/Banning area:
After all that nastynewsyesterday, we finally get some GOOD NEWS out of OC to wake up to this morning! (From OC Register)
The city is drafting a law to expand its minimum pay standard to include contract workers along with city employees who already receive at least $10 an hour plus benefits.
Irvine is the only city in the county with a living wage law, and Tuesday night voted 3-2 (with Christina Shea and Steven Choi dissenting) to have staff add to the law to pay contract workers an hourly wage to raise their annual salaries above the national poverty line.
"We ought to set a standard that anybody paid by the city is paid at least $10 an hour," said Councilman Larry Agran, who suggested the concept. "We need to join other United States cities that are not just satisfied with paying a minimum wage."
Yep, you heard me right! The Democratic majority on the Irvine City Council (Beth Krom, Larry Agran, and Suhkee Kang) voted last night to expand the living wage ordinance in Irvine to city contractors. And yes, Irvine is not only THE FIRST CITY IN ORANGE COUNTY TO ENACT ANY LIVING WAGE LAW, but now they are also ensuring that city-contracted workers earn enough money to afford living in this very expensive area! Kudos to Irvine for leading the county again in treating its workers well, and I can hardly wait to see the final living wage law that will be enacted! : )
The close of this week's legislative session drew an unequivocal distinction between Democrats and Republicans in this state. It was not in any way a victory for bipartisanship. If it were, you would be able to find ONE Republican in the State Senate or the State Assembly who actually voted for the "cap-and-trade" greenhouse gas emissions bill. You'd be able to find more than Abel Maldonado, the only Republican in either chamber to vote to increase the minimum wage. You'd have a SINGLE Republican member of the State Assembly, and more than TWO Republican State Senators (Denham, Harman) who voted for the bill providing universal health care in California. The only "bipartisanship" on display was between a Democratic legislature who moved California forward on the big issues, and a Governor trying to save his job in an election year. In this way California is a mirror image of the country at large. In election years of the recent past, Republicans have typically thrown red meat at their base, hoping to increase turnout among conservatives to carry them to victory. California's governor has completely abandoned that strategy, and in so doing neutured his party for decades to come.
Today's California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, CA-11, CA-04, John Doolittle, Richard Pombo, Proposition 89, redistricting, health care, minimum wage, reform.
The Legislature and Arnold Schwarzenegger have agreed to a deal on a minimum wage increase from its current position at $6.75 to $8.00. However, there will be no inflation indexing. The Legislative Leaders were forced to abandon the indexing due to threats of veto from Schwarzenegger. I understand the Legislature’s inclination to agree to get some sort of deal passed. Any delay in getting an increase passed costs the poorest workers in the state. That is not acceptable.
Schwarzenegger claims that his previous vetoes of minimum wage increases were because the business climate in the past couldn’t accommodate it.
Schwarzenegger praised the agreement as a boost for low-wage workers and the business climate. "I have always said that when the economy was ready, we should reward the efforts of California's hardworking families by raising our minimum wage," he said. (LA Times 8/22/06)
The problem with that is minimum wage increases do not result in job losses, but rather job increases. But the lack of an indexing provision is a travesty of justice. Card and Kruger have already disproved that one. No, what Arnold is really trying to do is putting the interests of his big business contributors ahead of the state’s working families.
"It's a long time coming, and frankly the reason it's coming is because this is a political year," said Art Pulaski, secretary-treasurer of the labor federation.
He said Schwarzenegger, running for reelection in November, had twice before vetoed similar bills but changed his mind this year as part of an electionyear move toward the political center.
Despite expected opposition from Republican lawmakers, a minimum wage bill is expected to win easy passage from the Democratic-controlled Legislature and be on the governor's desk shortly after lawmakers adjourn Aug. 31.
The GOP still can’t bring themselves to support the working poor. Do they respect big business that much more than California’s working families that they will push that hard against the bill? I guess so. Isn't that a bit scary? Yikes.
Indexing does nothing to increase the real wages of the state’s poorest. It merely does what is done for most people in government jobs, ties their earnings to what stuff actually costs. It takes politics out of the equation. If we passed indexing, we could set a real minimum wage once and let the indexing take care of the rest. But now we’ll be back where we started in five years. Hopefully then we will have a Democratic governor who understands the valuable role of the state’s minimum wage workers.
Today's California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry McNerney, Charlie Brown, John Doolittle, Brent Wilkes, Republican corruption, Proposition 89, minimum wage, prisons, environment, redistricting reform.
Just in time for the weekend, today's California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry McNerney, Paid-For Pombo, 15% Doolittle, Dan Lungren, Republican corruption, Proposition 89, Proposition 90, minimum wage, infrastructure bonds, prisons, global warming.
