Project 2029 - 3 A Living Wage

Dear Friends,

 

There are many ways to improve the lives of working people.  Some of them are purely financial – increasing their incomes and/or reducing their cost of living.  There are also non-financial issues that impact the quality of life of working people – safe crime free communities, high quality schools and daycare, healthy environment.

 

Today, I want to discuss one aspect of improving the lives of working people – a living wage.  This term has many descriptions.  At its lowest level a living wage is an amount sufficient to provide a decent standard of living, including housing, healthcare, food, and education.  The MIT Living Wage Calculator https://livingwage.mit.edu/pages/methodology uses the following definition of a living wage:

 

The Living Wage Calculator was originally developed in 2003 to comprehensively estimate the employment earnings—or the living wage—that a full-time worker requires to cover or support the costs of their family’s basic needs where they live. Today, the calculator features geographically-specific costs for food, childcare, health care, housing, transportation, other basic needs including household goods, personal care items, and broadband, and taxes at the county, metro, and state levels for 12 different family types.

 

In my view that definition is the bare minimum for the richest country in the world, and for us the definition should also include the ability to save for extras and for retirement as well as provide a basic level of entertainment and vacation.  Nevertheless, for the purposes of this post, I will use the MIT Living Wage Calculator.

 

A living wage is well above the poverty level.  For the continental US, the poverty level for a one-person household is $15,960 a year and for a four-person household is $33,000.  A full-time employee earning the federal minimum wage would earn $15,080 a year.  Please note that the federal minimum wage does not provide sufficient income for a person to escape poverty. 

 

The MIT Living Wage calculator calculates that in Minnesota (I used it because that is where I live) for a one-person household a living wage is $48,475, and for a four-person household of two adults (both working) and two children a living wage is $131, 549.  As you can see for a one-person household the living wage is 3 times the poverty level and for a four-person household is almost 4 times the poverty level.

 

The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 and has not been increased since 2009.  If the federal minimum wage had increased with inflation, today it would be about $11.25.  Based on inflation, the federal minimum wage should have increased 55% instead of staying the same.  https://www.usinflationcalculator.com  If you consider the federal minimum wage in light of productivity gains by workers, you get a similar although less dramatic result.  Since 2009 non-farm worker productivity has increased 31.24%. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHNFB/  On that basis the federal minimum wage should have increased to $9.51.  

 

Regardless of the calculation, the federal minimum wage needs to be increased substantially.  It is below the poverty level, it has not kept pace with productivity gains, and it has not kept pace with inflation.  

 

Fortunately, many states have higher minimum wages, and the law provides that an applicable state minimum wage takes priority if it is higher.  Thirty states plus the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands have minimum wages higher than the federal minimum wage.  Thirteen states plus the Northern Mariana Islands have minimum wages equal to the federal minimum wage and seven states and American Samoa have either no minimum wage or a minimum wage less than the federal minimum wage.  Those seven states are Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Wyoming.  https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/mw-consolidated#2  

 

Obviously, increasing the minimum wage would improve the living conditions of working people.  There are many studies on what the various impacts that would obtain from raising the minimum wage.  The negative impacts most often cited are a potential reduction in employment of low wage earners and an increase in prices. Unfortunately, most of these studies fail to take into account other actions that the federal government could take to offset the negative impact of raising the minimum wage on working people, like changes in the income tax rules, increasing other benefits available to working people and the impact of enforcing anti-trust laws.  

 

The Congressional Budget Office has a detailed study of the impact of raising the minimum wage based on a 2023 bill.   https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55681  I do not recommend you try to understand that study unless you really like to get into the weeds.  The Peter G. Peterson Foundation has also done a study which includes data from the CBO, but it is much more understandable.  The Peter G. Peterson Foundation is very concerned about government debt and has a right leaning philosophy, but it is regarded as being an unbiased reporter of facts and analysis. 

https://www.pgpf.org/article/heres-how-raising-the-mForinimum-wage-would-affect-everything-from-household-incomes-to-the-national-debt/

 

For a more labor friendly analysis I would suggest a study done by the Economic Policy Institute of a 2025 bill raising the minimum wage. 

https://www.epi.org/publication/rtwa-2025-impact-fact-sheet/  This study indicates that 22,247,000 workers would be impacted with an average increase of $3,200 per worker.

 

All of these studies indicate that raising the minimum wage would be a boon to working people, but there may be some negative side effects that could hurt other working people.  In the richest country in the world, we cannot continue to deny working people a living wage.  If the Democrats are going to regain the support of working people, they must push hard for a package of laws that would among many other things increase the minimum wage and offset any the negative impact of doing so. 

 

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

 

 

 

 

 

Project 2029 - 2

Dear Friends,

 

There are two broad goals that the Democrats must address in Project 2029 – improving the lives of working people and improving our democracy.  There are, of course, many other goals, but if the changes are made to improve our democracy, many of the other goals can be achieved through normal democratic processes.  

 

There are two prerequisites to achieve these broad goals – elimination of the filibuster in the Senate and significantly enlarging the Supreme Court.  Other than legislation that can be shoehorned into a reconciliation bill, the filibuster will need to be eliminated to pass the legislation needed to accomplish the two broad goals.  In addition, the concept of the unitary executive, currently in vogue with the radical right majority on the Supreme Court, will need to be defeated.  Under the unitary executive theory, the President can do what Trump has done – ignore the legislation and the authorized spending and just do those things that (s)he wants. 

 

So, every Democrat running for the Senate must be asked “what legislation will you fight for that will improve the lives of working people and will improve our democracy?”.  The follow up question is “will you work to and vote for the elimination the filibuster and the enlargement of the Supreme Court?”.  If the candidate is not willing to eliminate the filibuster and enlarge the Supreme Court, they are not serious about improving the lives of working people or improving our democracy.  Without eliminating the filibuster, the legislation cannot become law; and without enlarging the Supreme Court, a President can avoid duly executing the law. 

 

The goal is not to look like we are fighting but to take action that improves the lives of working people and improves our democracy.

 

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

The Democrats' Project 2029 -1

Dear Friends,

 

The Republicans developed their Project 2025 to provide a clear list of their priorities and the actions they would take if they took control of the Congress and the Presidency in the 2024 election.  They have been devastatingly efficient at accomplishing their goals because Republican elected representatives were complicit in the destructive policies and because they pursued their goals without regard to the Constitution and laws of the country.  

 

The Democrats must prepare their own Project 2029 to provide a clear list of their priorities and the actions they will take when they control the Congress and the Presidency after the 2028 election.  It can also be used as a campaign platform in the 2026 midterm elections.

 

I have decided to help the Democrats out by beginning a draft of Project 2029.  My next few posts will consist of first drafts of portions of Project 2029.  I can use all the help I can get so feel free to critique and augment my draft.  As a start, here is a couple paragraph preamble to Project 2029.

 

The goal of the actions and priorities outlined in Project 2029 must be to reestablish and insure the future of our country as a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-religious liberal democracy in which we all respect, value and support each other, and governments at all levels respect, value and support all the people, ensuring their constitutional rights, keeping them safe and providing them with the opportunity to meet their potential and prosper.  

 

Project 2029 provides a bold vision and list of priorities to be pursued by the Democrats including both short term and long-term policies to enact and implement asap once they control the House, Senate and Presidency.  As a prerequisite for this vision, the Democrats must immediately eliminate the filibuster and reform the Supreme Court by enlarging it and in the longer-term instituting term limits and a method of providing each Presidential term with some nominations.  

 

There are many issues that must be addressed.  The Democrats must take them all on at once, much as the Republicans did with Project 2025, except that the Democrats must follow the rules.The Democrats must within the first two years of unified control prove to the voters that they are going to make good on their campaign promises.

 

Future posts will outline the various policies and actions that I think should be included in Project 2029.

 

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal