Minimum Wage

The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down an appeal from Applebee's International Inc., which is battling a lawsuit from more than 5,500 bartenders and servers accusing the restaurant chain of underpaying them. The high court declined to hear Applebee's case, which focuses on a practice in which restaurants pay employees reduced minimum wage by factoring in the extra boost provided by tips. Known as a “tip credit,” the practice is banned in states such as California and Minnesota but permitted in Missouri, where many of the plaintiffs work.

“You get what you pay for,” goes the proverb, and that might worry residents of Scranton, Pa. The city government has unilaterally slashed the pay of firefighters, police and public works employees to the minimum. Lawyers for the unionized workers, whose pay was sharply cut -- by around two-thirds in some cases -- to the minimum of $7.25 an hour, filed Tuesday for a contempt hearing against Mayor Chris Doherty. A judge last week had ruled that the mayor could not cut the pay for almost 400 workers.

Proposed legislation to raise the state minimum wage could eliminate tens of thousands of jobs and harm the California economy, a small-business advocacy group said. The measure, AB 10, could wipe out more than 68,000 jobs over 10 years and cost $5.7 billion in lost production of goods and services, according to a study released Tuesday by the National Federation of Independent Business. More than 63% of the lost jobs would be in the small-business sector, NFIB researchers said.

As expected, President Bush, with the gratitude of the business world, has vetoed the bill to raise the minimum wage, which has not been increased since 1981. This is shameful when one considers that corporate profits and executive salaries have skyrocketed, partly on the backs of these unfortunate people. I guess this is a no surprise as history tells us that government and business will only give the people enough to keep their power and money machine rolling. I wonder how many government employees are paid the minimum wage?

Workers who are getting paid a measly $4.25 per hour are highly underpaid. People's spending power is not as good as it was years ago when the government raised the minimum wage during Bush's term. The low minimum wage now strongly affects students, especially our college students. Many of them work an enormous amount of hours just to go to school. It also gives them less time to study. The minimum wage should be at least $5.50 per hour. If students keep getting paid this little, they might have a tendency to drop out of school to work.

The prevailing minimum wage is six years out of date, and its adjustment is long overdue. The Democrats in Congress are now making that their business--an appropriate and constructive move. Unfortunately, President Reagan, with broad support from the Republicans in Congress, is seeking to block the adjustment. There is no way for someone working at the present $3.35-an-hour minimum wage to provide decent support for a family.