Call them the Religious Left - Let Justice Roll/Minimum Wage

Quote:

Pastors Push Living Wage as Election Issue

Abid Aslam, OneWorld US
Tue Oct 3

Call them the Religious Left: Church leaders are seeking to rally ''values voters'' ahead of next month's elections in a nationwide crusade to raise the minimum wage.

The Let Justice Roll campaign, a congregation of some 80 religious and community organizations including the National Council of Churches USA, said in a statement it plans to hold hundreds of rallies, workshops, religious services, and prayer breakfasts across the country to urge state and federal officials and candidates to boost working families' fortunes.

So-called Living Wage Days events this month will seek to pass minimum wage ballot measures in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, and Ohio.

"A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it," said Rev. Paul Sherry, anti-poverty program coordinator at the National Council of Churches and former president of the United Church of Christ.

The issue appears to be gaining political traction. October's events come on the heels of state minimum wage increases in Arkansas, California, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

Campaign members cited a recent poll that they said showed nine out of 10 Americans support a higher minimum wage. They added that they would lead efforts next year to pass state wage hikes in New Hampshire and Tennessee.

Congressional Democrats also are seeking to capitalize on the minimum wage among a raft of bread-and-butter issues they say the Republican-controlled legislature has neglected.

''We haven't had time to increase the minimum wage, to cut the cost of student loans for America's college students, to lower prescription drug prices, to roll back tax breaks for big oil," Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, was quoted as saying Friday before legislators broke for an intense period of campaigning ahead of the Nov. 7 midterm election.

To be sure, members of Let Justice Roll have voiced outrage at the meager earnings of millions of Americans at the bottom end of the labor market. But their campaign also seeks to present faith-based voters with an alternative to the Religious Right agenda.

''We've long seen scorecards from the Christian Coalition and others show how members of Congress vote on so-called social issues but not on help for the poor, which the Bible mandates hundreds of times,'' said Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches.

''Millions of values voters care about fair wages for the people who do some of the hardest, most important jobs in our society--from childcare teachers we entrust with our children to healthcare aides we entrust with our parents,'' Edgar said.

The federal minimum wage rose to $5.15 per hour in 1997 but has lost more than one fifth of its value since then, campaigners said. Today's minimum pay buys less than it did in 1950, they added.

At the federal level, the campaign wants Congress to raise the minimum wage to at least $7.25 per hour and to oppose measures that would weaken existing eligibility, tipped worker coverage, overtime and other labor protections, or link the minimum wage to tax cuts for the wealthy.

''Congressional leaders are holding the minimum wage hostage to a tax cut for wealthy heirs,'' said Johanna Chao Rittenburg, economic justice program manager at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.

An estimated 14.9 million workers--11 percent of the work force--would benefit were the minimum hourly wage raised from $5.15 to $7.25 by 2008, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a Washington, DC-based think tank funded by business and labor philanthropies.

Of those workers, 6.6 million now earn less than $7.25 and would be directly affected by an increase. The additional 8.3 million workers earning slightly above the minimum also would benefit. That is because even though a raise is not legally mandated for workers earning a few more dollars than the proposed new minimum wage, many employers raise their pay anyway to preserve internal wage structures. This makes raising the minimum wage an important part of a broader strategy to end poverty, EPI researchers said.

Employers' groups and economists critical of proposed wage hikes have countered that such measures can condemn small businesses to insolvency but EPI researchers said there was no evidence that the 1997 wage gain had led to job losses.

State and municipal officials have commissioned their own studies even as they have enacted living wage measures.

In September, University of New Mexico researchers told members of the Santa Fe City Council that the municipality's two-year-old experiment with pay hikes had neither hit businesses with higher costs nor hurt low-skilled workers, contrary to employers' fears that higher wages would force businesses to cut jobs or relocate away from the city.

Council members commissioned the study after adopting a measure two years ago that required employers with more than 25 workers to pay $8.50 per hour, above the state and federal minimum of $5.15. Santa Fe raised its floor to $9.50 per hour in January and expects to raise it further, to $10.50, in 2008.

Whether the moves have provided significant succor to workers or the city's economy remained to be seen, the daily Santa Fe New Mexican quoted the researchers as saying.

Is anybody looking into the tax exempt status of these groups that are heavily involved in political lobbying efforts?

Only if their lobbying for democrats.

The religious left definitely exists -- there were a lot of people who were both religious and activists in the lefty sense in Minneapolis, where I grew up. Happy to see them get some recognition.

Why don't you take the large mote our of your eye, Nimn? [..] You live in one of the most politically fu**ed up countries in Europe and you have the cojones to criticize what goes on in the richest most productive country [etc]

Our poorest people in the USA have indoor plumbing. Nimh. They don't have to go outdoors to defecate like they do in parts of Hungary.

What a fraud you are!!

You answered everything but the critical question. Nimh. Living in a country like Hungary, wouldn't it be best to turn your expert attention to setting it straight first instead of critiquing the best country in the world?

Let me give you a clue. Nimh. I don't give a damn about Europe. They are a bunch of ungrateful slobs who don't deserve being rescued from the Kaiser and Adolf Hitler at the cost of American blood. I ONLY COMMENT ON EUROPE BECAUSE MY COUNTRY IS BEING ATTACKED BY KNOW NOTHINGS LIKE YOU WHO HAVE NEVER BEEN HERE. I WILL NEVER COMMENT ON EUROPE UNTIL SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT KNOW ABOUT MY COUNTRY LIKE THE RIDICULOUS WALTER HINTELER WHO GETS MOST OF HIS INFORMATION FROM THE BIASED ENGLISH PAPER--THE GUARDIAN-

GET IT?

Now, I will never comment on Hungary or the Fourth Reich or the cowardly French

Why don't you argue with other Hungarians about the course your country should take?

Try very hard and you may even be able to find some good things to say about the USA. I know you may then not be allowed into your Socialist drinking group for a couple of weeks because of your apostasy but try it--just once!!!

MarionT wrote:

Try very hard and you may even be able to find some good things to say about the USA. I know you may then not be allowed into your Socialist drinking group for a couple of weeks because of your apostasy but try it--just once!!!

I dont need to try very hard, I can think of many good things to say about the USA, especially its people rather than its government, and I have said them here too. To you, even.