Last October, the U.S. Senate rejected a raise to the federal minimum wage, which, despite inflation, has remained unchanged at $5.15 per hour for the past decade. Republicans in the Senate defied the majority of Americans who, according to polls, favor raising the minimum wage. Just four of the 55 Republicans in the Senate voted in favor of the measure and all four of them face close races for re-election in November (including Lincoln Chafee '75 of Rhode Island).
An individual working full-time at minimum wage earns about $10,000 per year, which puts a family of four with two wage earners below the poverty line. Many have argued that material comfort is not an inherent right and that minimum wage earners deserve their poverty because of their inability to compete in the economy.
Something that few would disagree with, however, is that social mobility based on the work ethic of the individual is the very essence of the American dream - which itself is a noble concept that deserves to be defended, not an empty platitude to be abandoned with cynicism.
The federal minimum wage at $5.15 per hour not only forces families with two full-time working parents into poverty, it gives them no hope of social advancement. Working full time and raising kids leaves little time to pursue an education, which is the key to social advancement. Nor does it leave hope for saving money for the future. This type of threadbare existence - a combination of hard work and hopelessness - is the very negation of the American dream. It resembles a modern form of serfdom more than the type of noble, pragmatic values upon which this country was founded and has grown.
If a majority of Americans support raising the minimum wage, why do Republicans oppose it? The connection between politics and the business elite - which has a strong vested interest in keeping labor cheap - clearly has a role to play, but it only tells half of the story. Conservatives base their opposition to raising the minimum wage on the economic argument that this raise also increases unemployment by making workers too expensive for employers. As a result, the first people to lose their jobs come from the same parts of the population the minimum wage is intended to benefit - unskilled workers with little education. Clearly, it is better for a poor worker to have a low-paying job than to have no job, an argument that proponents of raising the minimum wage have failed to answer.
Rather than forcing businesses to bear the costs of raising the minimum wage, the government ought to use tax money to subsidize the paychecks of low-income workers, especially those with children. For employers, a new unskilled worker will still cost $5.15 per hour, and thus the overall rate of employment will not change. For workers, it makes little difference if they receive extra money from their employer or from the government. This policy would not only alleviate the poverty of working families without reinforcing the welfare state of unemployment that conservatives rail against, but it would also give enterprising working families a chance to save the extra money they receive, opening their future prospects and thus re-integrating them into the American dream.
Additionally, the government should encourage - and facilitate - the desires of upwardly mobile poor people by making it easier for them to pursue an education while they are working. Unskilled full-time workers who wish to pursue their first degree ought to receive state money to make this goal possible, not only in the form of loans, but in the form of direct subsidies to their family to make up for the money they lose working part time while they pursue their studies.
The heart of the American project is the idea of a market-driven meritocracy. The main threats to this idea today are not revolutionary socialism or international terrorism but rather a wealth-by-birth model of society. Both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars were fought largely to prevent America from becoming a land of aristocracy, as it has increasingly become.
Today, the higher education system is used as a mechanism for the perpetuation and justification of social classes. Despite efforts to the contrary, the wealth and education of one's parents are still the primary factors that determine whether someone will go to college. Universities are mostly full of the children of the wealthy and of educated immigrants, and Brown is no exception. With competition rising in an increasingly fast and mobile national and international economy, society is increasingly being divided into "winners" and "losers" rather than American-style equal individuals.
Helping working families regain the possibility of social advancement is a key to reversing this trend. In order to do so, Congress should move beyond its tired ideological arguments.
Michal Zapendowski '07 is living the dream.
