Please take a look at this tweet,
xFast-food, home care, child care workers: Your advocacy is changing our country for the better. #Fightfor15 -H
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 10, 2015Now tell me, if you were an overworked and exhausted minimum wage worker just trying to get by, just trying to earn enough money to survive, especially one who is female and perhaps a single mother, would this tweet make you think that Sen. Clinton is on your side and will do everything she can to raise the minimum wage to $15?
IMHO, the answer is yes.
And Hillary is also a great feminist too, right?, one who is finally going to be a champion for all women, hooray! In fact, if you manage to glimpse HRC’s /issues/womens-rights-and-opportunity/ page on her campaign website, you’ll find this:
Increase the minimum wage. The current minimum wage isn’t enough for Americans to meet their basic needs. Because women represent nearly two-thirds of all minimum wage workers, many women are living that reality every day. A higher minimum wage will help close the gender pay gap, lift millions of women out of poverty, and have a ripple effect across our economy. While we work to raise the federal minimum wage, Hillary will also support state and local efforts to go above the federal floor. [underlining by me]
The message we are being fed is that Hillary really understands the problems that real women are facing, especially the struggles of overworked and exhausted minimum wage workers. She’ll have their backs, and use her enormous political expertise to get them $15. She’s on their side.
But the truth is, this message is misleading. The only presidential candidate in 2016 who wants to actively fight for a $15 minimum wage is Bernie Sanders. Fortunately, a number of folks on twitter did the necessary to point out the truth after @HillaryClinton sent out her tweet:
x@HillaryClinton but...you're only fighting for $12?
— . (@incoduce) November 10, 2015 x@HillaryClinton i thought you opposed a $15 minimum?!? Oh! Just another chance for you to #StealTheBern#Bernie2016
— Bryan Porter (@beeepoh) November 10, 2015 x@HillaryClinton Then why weren't you there standing in solidarity with them like @BernieSanders did this morning? pic.twitter.com/L1fgKGHOHi
— Pittsburgh 4 Bernie (@PittsBern) November 10, 2015In a previous diary, Women, PoC, and Starvation Wages ... When Does the Greed Stop? $12 is not Enough, I shared
Some Disturbing Facts about the Minimum Wage
Hillary is correct: the majority of workers who earn the minimum wage are women (and also persons of color, which she doesn’t mention) |
Fast-food workers and child-care workers represent two of the most common types of minimum wage workers |
Today’s federal minimum wage ($7.25) has a real value that is about 20% lower than the level described by John Lewis as a “starvation wage” ($8.91) when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the March on Washington |
After 1970 the buying power of minimum wage workers was never again as high as it had been in 1963. |
The minimum wage was at its highest real value close to 50 years ago. |
Notice to whom Hillary’s tweet is addressed: fast-food, home care, and childcare workers. These people make up the vast majority of minimum wage workers.
Fast-food workers were the folks who started the Fight for $15 movement way back in 2012. They are fighting for $15, not $12. In August 2015, Clinton met with childcare workers, many of whom “were strong and vocal advocates for raising the federal minimum wage to $15 ... After the event, Clinton took a few pictures — including one with people wearing "Fight for $15" T-shirts.”
Surely Clinton understands that the majority of persons who earn the minimum wage want $15, doesn’t she? And she certainly knows that the majority of these workers are women, because she describes that very clearly on her website.
Only Bernie Sanders
wants to fight to get these low-income women $15 an hour wants to fight to lift the children of these women out of poverty makes the pledge: “We must ensure that no full-time worker lives in poverty.”I must say It shocks me, it absolutely shocks me, that in America, in the year 2016, it is even a matter of debate about whether or not full time workers should be given sufficient wages that will allow them to survive. You know, survive, as in “not die”. Full time workers.
“People who work full time are fulfilling their most basic social responsibility. As such, they should earn enough to live on.” [...]
“A $15 minimum wage is the only moral choice” — Robert Reich, 2015
When businesses do not pay their employees enough to LIVE, these employees must resort to government programs such as food-stamps. Taxpayers pick up the tab, while cheapo employers make higher profits.
That is completely wrong and completely sick. Essentially, taxpayers are being used to pay partial “wages” for these employees. Businesses should not be allowed to keep profits when taxpayers are paying for food-stamps for their employees. That is insane. But only one presidential candidate is willing to publicly acknowledge this insanity, the one who happens to not accept large campaign contributions from rich donors.
Now, please take a look at Hillary’s /issues/labor/ page on her website:
”Hillary believes we are long overdue in raising the minimum wage. She has supported raising the federal minimum wage to $12, and believes that we should go further than the federal minimum through state and local efforts, and workers organizing and bargaining for higher wages, such as the Fight for 15 and recent efforts in Los Angeles and New York to raise their minimum wage to $15.”
Translated into normal English instead of political weasel one gets this:
“She has supported raising the federal minimum wage to $12, and recommends that existing laws be followed at the state and local level if additional increases are desired by those voters.”
Clinton’s language is noticeably different from Sander’s on this issue. Sanders’ words are full of fire and empathy; Clinton’s are almost clinically detached. Clinton doesn’t even acknowledge the issue that Sanders cares about deeply: full time workers being given miserly wages that force them to live in poverty. Sanders’ goal is focused on reducing poverty; Clinton’s goal is more narrowly focused on “raising the minimum wage;” the emphasis of each goal is different and significant.
I find it odd that Clinton begins with “She has supported” instead of “she supports” but that is relatively trivial.
The part that is more problematic begins with “believes that we should go further ...” These words sound nice, don’t they? And it is nice, I think, that Clinton “believes” that state and local efforts “should” be made to increase state and local minimum wages that are higher than the federal one … because that happens to be how our American federal government already operates: power is shared between the “national” government and state/ local ones. “National” laws must be obeyed (as long as they are constitutional), but state and local governments have the authority, even without Clinton’s encouragement, to pass additional laws that apply to their own citizens (again, as long as they are constitutional).
The phrasing on Clinton’s website about the minimum wage reminds me of her tweet. Both contain pretty words that can be confusing to innocent voters about where she actually stands on the issue. Perhaps these words were badly chosen; perhaps not. Politicians are experts at using language to manipulate meaning. In truth, all that Clinton is promising to do regarding a $15 minimum wage is to cheer from the sidelines, much as she just did using twitter. That’s what “encourage other communities to go even higher” looks like.
Sanders wants to fight to get these guys $15 an hour, so that no full-time worker lives in poverty. Clinton wants to send them nice tweets.
$12 is not enough in any part of the United States for a single parent with one child to survive without government assistance. Why should businesses be allowed to keep profits when taxpayers are paying for food-stamps for their employees?