Louisiana Voice

2009

That’s when the minimum wage was last raised to $7.25 per hour.

As of January, 30 states have minimum wages that exceed $7.25.

That means 20 states still pay $7.25 per hour minimum wage after it was first set at that rate 17 years ago.

Louisiana is one of those 20 and apparently, will remain so for at least another year after the House Labor and Industrial Relations danced all around the real issues of inflation and defeated HB 353 by State Rep. Tammy Phelps (D-Shreveport).

The committee, as might be expected, voted along party lines as seven Repugnantcans voted not to report the bill favorably while five Democrats, the true representatives of working America, voted in favor of raising the minimum wage to $12 per hour in 2027 and $15 per hour by 2029.

Yes, that’s a 52 percent increase, but think about it. Spread over the past 17 years, that represents an average yearly increase in the low single-digits—something less than 2 percent per year.

And keep in mind just since March 1, gasoline has increased 21 percent on average while the cost of housing, groceries, clothing, health care, goods and services, travel and other living expenses, have risen as well.

And a person is supposed to survive on $7.25 an hour.

One of those who voted no on the bill, Rep. Brian Leonard Glorioso (R-Slidell) found it so easy to say we should raise pay but instead, let’s train workers to qualify for higher wages. Sounds good in theory but workers making $7.25 an hour for the most part have two, sometimes three jobs just trying to survive. That doesn’t leave much time in the day for training, now does it, Mr. Repugnantcan Glorioso?

Likewise, Rep. Roger William Wilder III (R-Denham Springs) was equally snobbish and out of touch when he pissed and moaned about how increasing minimum wage would create an undesired ripple effect. “If you’re a Walmart manager making $4.50 an hour more than a minimum wage worker and the minimum wage is raised to bring that employee to within $1.50 of your salary, are you going to continue to be motivated?”

Aw, gee, Mr. Wilder III, you got us there. Except you might want to consider raising that manager’s salary as well. Anyone taken a look at Walmart earnings lately? I believe they could afford a little largesse with their employees.

You see, that’s the damned problem with these Repugnantcans. They want above all else to keep salaries of working stiffs as low as possible while paying their CEOs like they were an LSU head football coach. Let’s be realistic here. I don’t recall the manager of a Walmart ever once helping me find an item in the store. Nor have I ever witnessed a manager stocking shelves. And that, after all, is the bottom line for Walmart: keeping shelves full of products for you and me to buy and those low-paid employees are making obscene money for the Walton family.

And lest anyone think I’m picking on Walmart, they’re not the only corporate entity perfectly willing to screw over their employees and if they can get a bunch of fat and happy Repugnantcan lawmakers to hold the minimum wage down, so much the better for those at the top of the food chain.

I’ve never yet seen a suit get down and dirty to produce consumer goods, though I have seen a lot of low-paid individuals struggling to put food on the table and clothes on their children’s backs doing so.

Here’s a thought: Let’s let Labor and House Industrial Relations Committee members Raymond Crews (R-Bossier City), Dodie Horton (R-Haughton), Glorioso, Dennis Bamburg (R-Bossier City), Michael Melerine (R-Shreveport), Phillip Eric Tarver (R-Lake Charles) and Wilder try to subsist for one month—just one month—on $7.25 per hour.

And I don’t mean do it the way that congressman did a couple of years back. He accepted the challenge to live for a month on minimum wage but before embarking on that challenge, he made sure his larder was fully stocked with food, utility bills were already taken care of, etc. In other words, he took care of all his living expenses in advance and only then did he begin his minimum wage dog and pony show.

Oh, and by the way, there was one other committee member who took a walk and didn’t vote. Rep. Michael Echols (R-Monroe) must’ve been out on the campaign trail running for Julia Letlow’s U.S. Representative seat.

Just for the fun of it, you want to see some of the other $7.25 states?

Well, there’s Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas, to name a few. Hell, even Arkansas has a minimum wage of $11 per hour.

For the complete list, go HERE. Notice anything most of them have in common? Yep, they are almost all decidedly blood-red Repugnantcan states—greedy, self-possessed, Scrooge-descendant Repugnantcans.

Don’t try to tell me Repugnantcans are of the Christian, family-values party.

They’re neither.