Ive here. What’s frustrating about the debate about the need to increase wages is that many are brainwashed into parroting claims that small businesses can’t afford it. If a small business can’t survive without paying extremely low wages, maybe it shouldn’t exist. The beneficiaries are not business owners, but customers who receive services at excessively cheap prices.

A very right-wing friend of mine often slants the Clintons who have lunch with her, sincerely insisting that they need to give up access to cheap berries. Berries are hand picked and should be expensive. The right-winger says berries should be $10 a pint and she’ll pay, just eat them less often. Her liberal friends tend to think they might have to eat less of the diet items their gourmet guru recommends.

That was before the fact that big corporations and fast food franchises like to use those very volatile small businesses to justify their stingy paychecks.

By: Sonali Kolhatkar, Founder, Host and Executive Producer “Rise with Sonali,” TV and radio shows on Free Speech TV and Pacifica Radio.she’s a writing researcher national economy Project of the Independent Media Institute. Depend on. . .Production national economya project of the Independent Media Institute

among all the good news about successful labor organization and job growth A harsh reality in the US is that wages remain unforgivably low even as inflation rises.new government Report by numerous institutions, including US Treasury A stark conclusion is drawn that corporate power is suppressing wages.

Two weeks later, the International Aid Oxfam America posted a Report Consistent with this finding, millions of American workers still earn less than $15 an hour. People of color, and women of color in particular, are disproportionately affected—as is always the case.

but, pro-business reporting Paints a rosy picture of the U.S. economy – no intervention needed because things are going well on their own.

government ReportLittle did the media notice, it was the result of a collaboration between the Treasury, Justice, Labor and Federal Trade Commission. It concluded that U.S. wages are 20% lower than they should be, a situation that is a direct result of corporations wielding power over the labor market.

However, like Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) went on to insist that wages “naturally rose far beyond… [the federal minimum wage] Government intervention to boost the bottom line would be a bad idea because of fundamental supply and demand.” CEI cited how Target pays workers $15 to $24 an hour. It cannot address how low-wage workers can afford to pay if inflation continues to rise Affordable living. In fact, the group’s only concern seems to be how rising wages lead to inflation.

but Ministry of Finance report Pointing out that corporate power is unnatural suppress Earning wages in a variety of ways, including outsourcing labor to lower-wage countries, imposing so-called “non-compete” contracts, reducing workers’ ability to switch jobs in their fields, and misclassifying workers to prevent them from engaging in labor joining trade union rights.

There is nothing “natural” about this.

Ten years ago, fight for fifteen The movement, born out of Chicago’s fast food industry, demands wages of at least $15 an hour. Ten years after the movement started, most states Employers are still not required to pay $15 an hour.although Washington DC, There is now a minimum wage of $15.20 an hour, but it’s still an exception.Dazhouru California and New York is slowly rising in the right direction, with a total of 30 states The minimum wage is now required to be higher than the federal minimum wage. But this is an extremely low standard.

The federal minimum wage should be a national disgrace, having remained at an embarrassingly paltry $7.25 an hour since 2009.This is longest The government has not raised the federal minimum wage since the New Deal.

According to a new report from Oxfam America, “America’s Low Wage Crisis,” “More than 31.9 percent of the U.S. workforce, or 51.9 million workers, currently earn less than $15 an hour, and many remain at the federal minimum wage. “

Dr. Caitlin HendersonSenior Research Advisor for the U.S. Domestic Policy Program at Oxfam America, who wrote Report,tell me interview “It’s shocking, especially considering this is the highest [that] Four decades have passed since inflation. “

Even those earning $15 an hour are barely making ends meet. Henderson explained that the so-called cap is “down to $31,200 a year before taxes.”This means they’re having a hard time keeping roofs and table food over their heads. That’s not enough for one person [on], not to mention working families. “

If this crisis isn’t obvious to the public, we can thank institutions like the CEI for spreading crap about the “natural” wage hike, and the near-exclusive focus of the corporate media number Quality of work and pay. Every month, when the Labor Department’s jobs report produces stories that focus only on payrolls and nothing else, media outlets often cover up the low-wage disaster.

E.g, New York Times The February 2022 report, which was reported on March 4, indicated “a large influx of new jobs and new workers in the last month,” which for the paper meant “the grip of the pandemic on the economy may be loosening.” . The report quoted pro-business economists such as Morgan Stanley’s Robert Rosener, who said: “We have been surprised by the elasticity of the U.S. labor market.”

This upbeat tone runs through the story, even when discussing wages: “The labor force grew, unemployment fell, and average hourly earnings were little changed from January, despite a marked rise over the past year, especially in low-wage industries. Worker.”

Anyone reading the New York Times or the CEI report will be optimistic about the state of the economy and take a hands-off approach.But Oxfam America ReportCovering wages through December 2021 came to a very different conclusion, with nearly a third of workers scraping by on meager wages. “In the U.S., the value we give to shareholders is somewhat greater than the value we give to the workers who make our society work,” Henderson wrote in the report.

Another major blind spot in pro-business economic reporting is how income inequality is divided by race. according to Henderson, “Low-wage workers are disproportionately female, people of color, and especially people of color.” Henderson referred to the “occupational segregation” suffered by black and Latino workers.

“When you consider race and gender through a cross lens, the pay gap increases dramatically,” Henderson Tell I. As a result, women of color who are overrepresented in industries such as child care are being hit hardest. We shouldn’t be surprised then, according to Henderson, “Childcare is one of the lowest-paid occupations in America,” which “reflects the value system we have in this country.”

The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) recommends that while elite figures and institutions are celebrating women’s history month One way to keep their money flowing in March is to support women working in childcare and home health care. Diana Azevedo-McAffrey of CBPP wrote Women of color, who dominate these industries but are severely underpaid, are “doing the work that supports the nation’s economy and maintains the health and well-being of their families.”

CBPP supports a myriad of essential federal policies to address this problem, including paid leave and federal funding for child care and home health care.Likewise, Oxfam America supports immediate solutions, such as increased federal funding and through wage increase lawwhich would gradually increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour — hardly a big deal 10 years after the 15 campaign, and no longer enough to meet the needs of working people.

America’s low-wage problem should shock us, despite business-friendly optimism about the economy and the media’s refusal to amplify the problem. The solution is obvious, simple, and hardly radical.