Raise the wage

By Tony Staley
Compass Editor

Last week the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill to increase the minimum wage. The Senate needs to do the same.

The bill would raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour by 2009. It was approved Jan. 10 by a vote of 315 (all the Democrats and 82 Republicans) to 116. The bill has the support of the U.S. bishops and Catholic Charities USA.

Bp. Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, N.Y., chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Domestic Policy, urged its passage in a Jan. 8 letter to Congress. "The minimum wage needs to be raised not just for the goods and services a person can buy but for the self-esteem and self-worth it affords," he said.

Catholic Charities USA not only supported the bill, it called for indexing the minimum wage to account for inflation. To understand how important that is, consider this: Jeff Rosensweig, associate professor of international business and finance at Emory University in Atlanta, determined that the minimum wage in 2009 would need to be $9.25 an hour to have the same purchasing power as the minimum wage did in 1978.

Unfortunately as needed and welcome as increases in the minimum wage are, those earning it are still far from keeping up. Just to reach the federal poverty line for a family of four would require a wage of $9.60 an hour for a 40-hour week.

And it's not just the poorest 10%. The Federal Reserve reported that while the wealthiest 10% of American households increased their net worth by 6% - to an average of $3.1 million - between 2001 and 2004, the net worth of the bottom 25% dropped on average to minus $1,400.

As Bp. DiMarzio noted in his letter to Congress, "As pastors, bishops see the tragic human and social consequences on individuals, their families and society when workers cannot support themselves and their families by their own labor."

"Raising the minimum wage is only one step needed to address the larger, more pressing problem of poverty in America," Bp. DiMarzio said. "In our shelters and soup kitchens, in our parishes and schools, we see working families who can't make ends meet. We serve too many families where men and women work full time and still live in destitution."

Fr. Larry Snyder, Catholic Charities USA president, noted that "Over the last several years, our agencies have been coping with steady double-digit increases each year in requests for emergency assistance because low-wage workers simply cannot earn enough to cover rent, child care, food, utilities and clothing for their families.... People who work full time should not live in poverty; they should be able to support themselves and their families."

Raising the minimum wage is vital. Justice demands it. But it's only the first step in addressing poverty in the U.S.