A Moral Obligation

This statement was made by The Reverend Bonnie Osei-Frimpong at the Raise Illinois Lobby Day in Springfield on Tuesday, January 31.

A family earning a minimum wage of $16,000 a year can not afford for the car to break down. They can not afford to take time off work if someone gets sick. They can not afford health care, child care, or elder care. A family living on a minimum wage can hardly afford nutritious food.

A family living on a minimum wage can afford to advocate for what is best for their well-being, and for their community's well-being. A family living on a minimum wage income can afford to march and move and mobilize for the sake of the American Dream. They can afford to buy-in to the common good, if they are given the chance to live, with a living wage.

There is one thing you learn very quickly when you are poor in America. Being poor is very, very expensive. When you are broke, and start cutting corners, juggling debts, when you skip your insurance payment just to get by, that is when things start to go wrong. That is when people get sick, home fires happen, bad luck hits.

When the only bill that gets paid this month is the bill that hit the ground first when you threw them all up in the air, then it is time for you to earn a wage that is enough to live on.

I was speaking to a man at my church. He told me, "It's not that I'm afraid to work. I work hard. I don't expect things to be easy. But what I don't understand is why it has to be so hard--why it feels impossible. I don't know why it is impossible."

Brothers and sisters in Christ, securing a living wage for the poor is a moral obligation. We in the state of IL have a responsibility to promote the livelihood of our fellow citizens by establishing a living wage. This is why the legislature should pass Senate Bill 1565 during this calendar year.

We are all criminals

Last week, I had the opportunity to hear the author of The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander, speak. During my time at PCG, I had heard of Alexander and her work during our many ongoing conversations about criminal justice, but to hear her speak was certainly inspiring. The statistics, of course, are shocking. In no uncertain terms, African Americans, specifically African American men, are incarcerated at rates that far outpace whites in the United States. In fact, there are more African American adults in prison today than enslaved in the 1850s, a number not correlating to the actual increase in crime rates. She spoke on the effects the War on Drugs has had on poor communities of color, the engrained discrimination that African Americans encounter daily for "looking like" they might posses drugs, whatever that means.

However, the most poignant points that Alexander made were about the ways in which we might overcome such shame and stigma. She pointed out that, in our current cultural climate, we refuse to allow people deemed "guilty" to have their stories heard. They are silenced twice, once by the system that imprisons them and then again upon their release by society who refuses them housing, employment, and voting rights. We tell them they are less than human, not worthy of care or relief. This is what we can change regardless of legislation.

Michelle Alexander was talking about those labeled prisoners, but her words extend to all the "guilty" innocents - those in poverty, those without proper documentation, those who lack health care options. This is why ignoring the very poor is not a gaffe - it is an intentional, dangerous mindset. How can we all heal when we do not offer a hand to those who we have ourselves have harmed? In her lecture, Alexander said "We are all criminals." She mentioned off hand that she noticed church people have no problem claiming the mantle of "sinner," admitting their violation of God's law. However, they are much more uneasy when told they have all violated the law of the state. We are all guilty. We are all redeemed.

Raising the Minimum Wage Makes Cents

It’s safe to say that 4:45am is earlier than I want to wake up most days. But this past Tuesday, that is precisely what time I (willfully) rolled out of bed. I had a good reason though. I was on my way to meet up with about 70 others to catch an early train down to the Capitol in Springfield to lobby for SB1565: a bill to raise Illinois’ minimum wage. After all, minimum wage workers all over the state wake up even earlier than 4:45 every morning to start preparing the breakfast and coffee we grab on our way into the office a few hours later, so maybe I owe ‘em one.

At 7am sharp, our train pulled out of Union Station. After some bagels and coffee, we got down to business. We had but a few short hours to teach crash courses in minimum wage reform and lobbying. Our train car was filled with a veritable potpourri of folks—clergy, minimum wage workers, nuns, lawyers, community organizers, lobbyists, and even an economist—but we all shared in the common goal of raising the minimum wage in our state. However, in order to pass the bill, we’d need more of an argument than, “$8.25 an hour isn’t enough to live on” (though there’s no doubt that statement is woefully true). We’d need the facts to back up our moral and democratic argument that no one who works full time should qualify for food stamps. We knew we’d need to have answers to pointed questions like: How will businesses be affected by the wage raise? Won’t raising the minimum wage cost our state jobs? How can we pass a raise in the minimum wage during an economic recession?

Fortunately, we did our reading ahead of time…

First, a recent national study comparing job growth in bordering counties with differing minimum wages has effectively proven that increases in minimum wage do not negatively affect job growth. Additionally, several other studies have demonstrated that raising the minimum wage actually saves businesses money (by reducing employee turnover and thus the cost of training new employees), generates new revenue for businesses (by increasing worker productivity), and creates a better work environment (by significantly elevating employee morale).

From an economic standpoint, there is also strong evidence that suggests we should raise the minimum wage. It's been estimated that raising the minimum wage would generate over $2 billion in new consumer spending in Illinois over the next four years. Raising the minimum wage means putting more money in the pockets of low-income families who will turn around and spend that money every month (because they still won’t make enough to put it into savings), primarily on goods and services in their own local communities. In fact, some economists project that this new consumer spending could create as many as 20,000 new jobs in Illinois over the next four years.

If that’s not convincing, I imagine most of us would agree that minimum wage should, at the very least, grow at the same rate as our economy. However, as our economy has expanded, minimum wage has lagged behind. If minimum wage had simply kept pace with inflation over the past forty years, it would be over $10 an hour today.

While in Springfield, we collectively visited the offices of all 59 Senators and every last one of the 118 Representatives, delivering to each a scroll with the signatures of more than 200 faith leaders from around the state supporting an increase in the minimum wage. Many of us were even lucky enough to catch some of the legislators and sit down to chat about the reason for our visit to our state’s capital. We then gathered in the rotunda of the Capitol for a press conference featuring clergy, sponsoring legislators, workers, and experts, all attesting to the fact that the time is now to stand up for the lowest paid workers in our communities.

Many of us were also able to track down the legislators from our own home districts. Whether our Senators are co-sponsors or opponents of SB1565, we wanted to let them know where we as constituents stood on the issue. We hope you can join us for our next Springfield excursion, but until then…

Find your Senator, ask where she/he stands on SB1565, and let her/him know that you support SB1565 to raise the minimum wage in Illinois to $10.65/hour over the next four years.

/ryan wallace/

How Long Would It Take for Mitt Romney to Make Your Salary?

With the recent release of Mitt Romney's 2010 tax returns, which list his total income for the year at $21.6 million, many of you may be wondering, "Just how long would it take Mitt Romney to earn my annual salary?"

Never fear!  Slate has created a Romney Income Calculator just for you!

Simply plug in your annual income, hit "Calculate", and you will see in hours, minutes, and seconds how long it would take Mitt Romney to earn your salary.

Give a whirl, and then, if you're feeling gutsy, post the response in the comments section below.

I won't reveal how embarrassingly quickly Mitt Romney earned my salary last year, but I will say that, according to this little gizmo, it would take me 601 years 8 months 13 days 15 hours 2 minutes and 24 seconds to earn his.  Brilliant.

The iPhone and Job Multipliers

The American economy has been in a poor state for a while now.  That much is obvious.  Here is an awesome, easy to understand, video explanation that has little to do with what happened in 2008 and digs at the fundamental issues that are threatening social mobility and job creation:

New York Times: iPhone Economy