Electron Hut: Kyle Bedell’s Blog

Working 40 hours a week for the entire year at $8.00 an hour only nets one around ~$16,600 before taxes. This is far below the level one needs to provide for a family of three, let alone four or more, according to the 2007 Federal Poverty Line.

Families in these situations with single parents or only one working parent are at a significant disadvantage; this especially applies to immigrant families who may not possess the education required to obtain higher paying jobs. For low-income families to stand a chance at pulling themselves out of poverty, they need to be making more than the minimum wage. Since education has a large impact on workforce skills, we should be pushing not only for increased wages, but improved education as well.

Disturbingly, our (soon to be) $8/hour minimum wage here in Massachusetts is “…among the highest in the country…” despite that not reaching the poverty line for a family of three. Our former governor thought to veto this substantial hike (from $6.75 to $7.50 to $8.00) in 2006, citing that “business groups had lobbied against the minimum wage bill, saying it would reduce jobs.” Studies done by the Economic Policy Institute in 1998 after a federal minimum wage hike showed the opposite.

“A 1998 EPI study failed to find any systematic, significant job loss associated with the 1996-97 minimum wage increase. In fact, following the most recent increase in the minimum wage in 1996-97, the low-wage labor market performed better than it had in decades (e.g., lower unemployment rates, increased average hourly wages, increased family income, decreased poverty rates).”

Further increases to the minimum wage on a federal level would only continue to benefit workers in this lower income bracket, especially single mothers, immigrant families, and those of Hispanic or African-American descent. The EPI’s facts on the minimum wage state that “Women are the largest group of beneficiaries from a minimum wage increase: 59% of workers who would benefit from an increase to $7.25 by 2009 are women.” In addition to this, “African Americans represent 11% of the total workforce, but are 16% of workers affected by an increase. Similarly, 14% of the total workforce is Hispanic, but Hispanics are 19% of workers affected by an increase.” These are positive disproportional effects.

The additional benefit of increasing the minimum wage would be to combat “inflation erosion” that has slowly been decreasing the purchasing power of a minimum wage salary for many years. A substantial increase would go a long way in offsetting boosted “cost-of-living” expenses. The EFI notes, “Since September 1997, the cost of living has risen 26%, while the minimum wage has fallen in real value. After adjusting for inflation, the value of the minimum wage is at its lowest level since 1955.”

Am I the only one who thinks that there’s something wrong with this picture:

You mean to tell me that our own minimum wage standards don’t provide minimum standards of living for our citizens? What?

Flock, a Firefox derivative focused on blog/photosharing/social networking integration just came out with their version 1.0 release. It’s been in beta for years, hovering at version 0.9 since my freshman year of college. The new interface looks really slick. It’s got built-in support for all of the major blog types (with the glaring exception of self-run Wordpress sites. Grr.) and can interface with Facebook and Flickr to show updates in a “People” sidebar. For bloggers, there’s a built-in blog writing tool, so as long as you’re logged in to whatever service you like to use, you can pen your entries in the built in editor.

Minor gripes include not being able to delete the Favorites Toolbar folder in my bookmarks…