Photo by Denis LORAIN on Unsplash

Very recently we passed the 12th anniversary since the last minimum wage hike was approved by Congress, lifting working class pay to $7.25 per hour. The twelve-year gap represents the longest stretch of time between increases since the minimum income standard was adopted by Congress over 80 years ago.

To mark the occasion, let’s take a look at the two most commonly plied arguments against raising the minimum wage:

1. Increasing the minimum wage will lead to loss of jobs.

2. The minimum wage should be abolished — it’s keeping wages down.

Considering argument number one comes from supply side charlatans, it should be dismissed out of hand since it’s an argument made in bad faith; an intellectually dishonest rationale. The very same crowd wouldn’t bat an eyelash if laying off employees meant fattening a company’s shareholder value.

As for argument number two, I think comedian Chris Rock said it best: It’s called minimum wage because if ‘job creators’ could pay you less, they would.

Minimum Wage and Productivity Gains

The purpose of all the minimum wage, described within the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FSLA), was “to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees.” Without laboring the point, minimum wage abolitionists are comfortable with the idea of people working for wages that keep them impoverished.

I find it agreeable that the Fair Labor Standards Act plied the phrase “minimum standard of living” because it renders what I would call a moral benchmark that should have kept working-class wages at a tolerable standard of living.

These days, however, the minimum wage marks how far behind the standard of living of both the working- and middle classes, has fallen.

(I have chosen to focus on the minimum wage as a baseline for a discussion of wage suppression that has clearly afflicted middle-class earnings, as well.)

The following chart reflects data for compensation (wages and benefits) since 1948. On or around 1973, notice that productivity continues to rise while hourly compensation goes on to flatline.

The year 1971 marks the occasion when President Richard Nixon launched an economic strategy that could be compared to a defibrillator. The U.S. economy had arrived at a condition known as stagflation — inflation combined with falling demand and high unemployment. In response, the Nixon administration deployed an economic policy maneuver that became known as the “Nixon shock.” Among the policy directives adopted were price and wage freezes for a period of 90 days.

Needless to say, prices recovered their upward trajectory. Not so, as far as wages were concerned. Compared with productivity gains that followed the “Nixon shock,” wages remained stagnant — eventually losing ground to the rising cost of living.

Congress Finally Acts

During the 116th U.S. Congress, the House passed a bill called Raise the Wage (HR 582). The legislation would not only have raised the minimum wage to $15 by 2024, it also would have indexed subsequent minimum wage increases to the growth of the median wage (as determined by the Department of Labor).

What’s truly enlightening about this legislation is the report (House Report 116–150 Raise the Wage Act) on the history of the minimum wage that accompanied it.

Several times the report refers to the “bargaining power" of low wage workers — and the statements are not flattering to employers. The document reasserts the FSLA’s conviction that low wage laborers have no bargaining leverage when negotiating a salary with an employer.

A fair wage — a living wage — standard must prevail to prevent exploitation of labor.

Take almost any comparison of today’s minimum wage with its inflation-adjusted antecedent 30, 40 and 50 years ago, you’ll observe a benchmark gradually but decisively being crushed by increases to the cost of living. The math is unmistakable.

If the minimum wage had been indexed to track productivity gains enjoyed by this nation’s executive class, the minimum wage today would be $24.

From the year the minimum wage became law in 1938 until 1968, Congress consistently passed minimum wage increases on parity with nationwide productivity gains.

The Debate, Retooled

This simple argument should stand as the framework of any discussion about wages and economics. Again: the last time the minimum wage had kept pace with productivity gains was 1968.

Sticking to this point will force defenders of wage suppression to acknowledge the how and why of fallen wages; contrary to claims by income suppressors, it hasn’t come about by the workings of impersonal market forces nor as a result of impartial economic trends. They would love nothing more than for wage earners to continue believing the inevitability of their own work’s deflating value.

The House report acknowledges Congress’s culpability for the sorry level of compensation paid to low wage workers: “[O]ver the last 40 years Congress has failed to sufficiently raise the federal minimum wage enough to maintain a standard of living. This, combined with a 10 year lapse in the last increase in the federal minimum wage, has severely eroded the value of the minimum wage.”

One could observe that the business community baked wage suppression into the American economy, beginning in the 1970s, to the extent that no economist or domestic policy maker could recognize commerce functioning any other way. Knowing the actual history of the dwindling minimum wage illustrates for the middle- and working classes that they are under no obligation to accept the prevailing economic conditions.

The donor class is a cancer afflicting this republic. Admittedly, I risk the use of impolite language to address a most grave and urgent threat to our body politic. Cancer patients rarely know when a cluster of malignant cells sets up shop in their body.

The very same could be said of the United States. However, now the malignancy of legal bribery is so systemic that it presides over the body politic (including the state and municipal level, as well).

This method of likening our republic at the mercy of a malignancy is not by any means novel. Errol Shorris wrote back in 2012 about the ails afflicting our nation using this very terminology, as he, himself, was dying.

I lie alongside my country, patriot of my body and my home, dying from an enemy within. Evening had come for me as it had come for America.

Granted, it’s a damning metaphor, however, one that enjoys far less discussion than it deserves.

Again, later in his elegaic essay “American Vespers," Shorris writes, “I did not know then that evening was coming to America.”

Errol Shorris quotes Aristotle — that the political body is nourished by ethics. But Greek philosopher did not convince Shorris that a lack of ethics would bring down the curtain over the grand American experiment.

“Without ethics politics has no limits. America broke the rules of living systems and lost its balance. All the oxygen flowed to a smaller and smaller section of the body politic.” And I would only add that the fortunes of said tumor have metastisized while the remainder of the body politic struggles for the oxygen of a dignified standard of living.

A nation led by figures without ethics — has its consequences. Earl Shorris elaborates.

With no ethical component to national politics, President Obama could deliver his 2011 State of the Union speech without ever mentioning the word “poverty,” although one in every five American children lived in poverty. Without a commitment to [18th century philosopher Francis] Hutcheson’s idea of the greatest good, which is at the core of the original American philosophy in Jefferson’s drafting of the Declaration of Independence, this may no longer be the brilliant experiment. If happiness is for the few and it produces unemployment approaching that of the Great Depression, then the shadow of evening is here.

Shorris made no mention of the donor class or the outsized influence wielded by an elite group of campaign funders. Perhaps at the end of his days it wasn’t as blindingly obvious as it appears now. However, the moral framework of his critique still remains relevant.

Today, even if a candidate for federal office is fortunate enough to fund raise exclusively from small donors (Rep. Alexandra Ocasio Cortez or Rep. Cori Bush are examples of such), and owe no favors to the big check writers — the donor class’s metastatic influence prevented any Congressional action on the Green New Deal or Medicare-for-All.

Voters have been slow — even foggy brained — to apprehend this predicament. There exist signs they are recognizing what imperils this nation. The telling indications are to be found among the dozens of candidates for Congress who are currently running small donor-funded campaigns.

However, the prevailing deference to the donor class agenda accounts for the popular complaint made over and over again on social media, "why we can’t have nice things."

Healthcare, education and a living wage sail away further and further out of reach in deference to the donor class (they know full well that the price for such necessities would increase the taxes levied on them). Moreover, we cannot begin to mobilize our considerable resources of intellect, finance and international leadership to meet the challenge of the climate change catastrophe that already wields supernatural force.

Even when a price tag for failure to act has already been projected, the voices urging immediate action are powerless to prompt any meaningful strategy.

Another for unfavorable comparison the donor class must thanklessly endure: parasite.

In the world of insects, one of the defining traits of the parasite rarely receives the attention it truly merits. The parasite not only siphons nutrition from the host, but it does so in a manner so stealth, that it thrives beyond the host’s awareness. That strikes me as the most insidious quality about parasites.

How does this matter?

If you were to ask any voter to describe the impact wielded by the Powell memo on domestic policy, you would most likely see the response of a blank stare. “What Powell memo?” (What a gracious host; not even remotely aware of the parasite’s hold on our nation.)

Before corporate lawyer Lewis Powell was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1971, his most enduring legacy was a memo he wrote at the request of the Chamber of Commerce. What prompted the request? It turned out to be a spell of paranoia on the part of big business--a hop-headed notion that the “American free-enterprise system" faced an existential crisis after the decade of social and political upheaval that was the 1960s.

Known today as the Powell memo, it did not see the light of day until 1973. In a manner of speaking, it was a call-to-arms addressed to the business community, urging action on a number of initiatives that would influence the government, media and education in favor of “American free market enterprise.”

The memo succeeded beyond Lewis Powell’s wildest dreams. As a result of the missive’s directives, big business managed to accomplish the following:

• unplugging the Fairness Doctrine, an FCC policy that required licensed media broadcasters to fairly present public issues reflecting differing viewpoints. Eliminating this rule protects business from criticism (accountability) that would be of benefit to the public.

• expanding the influence of the corporate political action committee (PAC); in 1974 there were only 89; by 1980 the number had grown to 1,262 and 1,578 by 2008. In any given year, 11,000 lobbyists swamp the decision making institutions of government. The PAC funding of political campaigns naturally amplifies the voice of the lobbyist.

• granting free speech rights to money, also known as the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. A fatuous string of reasoning that asserts limiting the amount of money from any one source that goes into a campaign, infringes on a corporation’s freedom of speech. The debate spurred the talking point popularized by Republicans: “Corporations are people.” Pause for a moment to think about this claim. One of the crucial purposes a corporation serves is to protect its founders from liability. Citizens United adds “free speech” to an entity that protects an already privileged class. The corporate world not only wants to have its cake — they want to snort it, too. So much for the one-voice, one-vote principle that is supposed to make government representative of its citizens’ self-ruling aspirations.

Take all three aforementioned developments inspired by the Powell memo, all realized without much protest or fanfare, and the parasite accusation begins to sound not too outrageous. The donor class nestles securely in the flesh of the body politic, without so much as a wince or glance.

The peril this poses can be understood in the social unrest this nation has endured over the last 20 years. Different segments of the American population know something terrible has gone wrong with the nation’s standard of living among middle- and working classes. Healthcare costs consume more and more of the lower 90 per cent of income’s diminishing earning power. Far too many Americans fall prey to simplistic, xenophobic explanations that fault undocumented immigrants for economic woes (a classic racist rhetorical diversion that goes back at least 170 years).

There are other segments of American population for whom criminal justice and extra-judicial killings that target people of color, present entrenched public policies (i.e. qualified immunity) resisting calls and outright protests for change. Take into consideration surplus military equipment that funnels to local police departments and drug enforcement habits that ensare people of color — there is very little in such policy decisions that the donor class hasn’t weighed in on, given the access they’ve purchased with campaign donations.

Whether a cancer or a parasite, the patience and long suffering of rank and file voters has long been overdrawn. The question remains whether or not they’ll exert the patience and organizational prowess to confront the donor class as vigorously as the public policy hellfire triggered by the Powell memo 50 years ago.