Service Workers Deserve a Better Shake

By DON ROLLINS

Not far from where I live is a multi-service agency on a mission: Feed the hungry, clothe the naked and try like hell to salvage folks who have for one reason or another been kicked to the curb.

As with many other threadbare outposts for compass ion, the dedicated staff has grown used to being overworked, overwhelmed and periodically anxious about meeting payroll; but what the skeleton crew is not accustomed to is the sharp spike in service workers lining up for diapers, baby formula and canned peaches.

Sadly the anecdotal experience of these Good Samaritans mirrors a much broader reality for the working poor; for over the course of the last 15 years – a period shaped by monetary policies largely enacted by my generation as we disco-pivoted from changing the world to changing our portfolios – economic disparities have exponentially skyrocketed. .

Insult to injury, 2012 Census Bureau statistics indicate the lowest poverty rates since 1964 (26 compared to today’s 16 percent) but shroud the inconvenient truth that without government assistance the poverty rate would approach nearly a third of the population.

Based on a 2013 study done by the Center for Labor and Research, there are other glaring omissions in the upbeat economic narrative – omissions that signal economic stagnation, especially for those at the bottom rung of the service industry:

• 20% of fast food workers live below the poverty line;

• 52% of the families of fast-food workers are enrolled in one or more public programs, compared to 25% of the workforce as a whole;

• The average age of today’s service worker is 29, 40% of whom are 25 or older;

• 79% earned high school diplomas and 31% have some college experience;

• One-third to one-half have at least one additional job;

• 25% are parents.

As per the current political head-butting on the issue, the fix for service worker income inequality starts with sequential bumps in the minimum wage. Despite much wailing emanating from conservative ranks, even the traditionally cautious Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects a sizeable boost in the federal minimum will result in little long-term negative fallout.

In a February 20, 2014, column reacting to the CBO’s findings, Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik counters conservative-driven doomsday predictions should the federal minimum be substantially raised from the current $7.25:

“… the CBO report makes clear that even with a job loss of 500,000 – in fact even with 1 million – the raise to $10.10 is distinctly a net plus for the economy. Overall national income would rise by $2 billion, and the effect on the federal government would be miniscule …

“[Thus] the CBO report creates a big problem for opponents of the minimum wage increase…[Conservatives] can cite those projected job losses as much as they want, but on the other side are increased wages for 16.5 million people…”

Given the makeup of the current Congress and an increasingly lame-duck Executive, getting to $10.10 would be a major policy coup; for there can be no fully agreed upon remedies for decades of paltry increases in what should be a living wage.

Truth is, instead of prioritizing human welfare and practicing just economics, those in seats of power (and we who put them there) have been busy relaxing corporate oversight, fighting dubious wars and enabling the greatest upward transfer of wealth in American history.

Raising the minimum wage is not a cause on par with the 13th Amendment, Voting Rights Act or a Supreme Court ruling that may soon put an end to heterosexual privilege at the wedding altar.

But if tied to the Consumer Price Index as proposed by some progressive economists, this single change will provide a necessary if not sufficient bulwark against the exploitation that helps keep our economy in knots and our hard-working sisters and brothers standing in line for canned peaches and baby formula.

Don Rollins is a juvenile court program coordinator and Unitarian Universalist minister living in Jackson, Ohio. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2015

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