Moving Out

One statistic in a New York Times article about the newly homeless living in their cars stood out to me. From The Times:

Last year was the first year on record, according to an annual study conducted by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, that a full-time worker at minimum wage could not afford a one-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country at average market rates.

I think it's well past time that our government has a serious debate about raising the federal minimum wage in this country, which has remained stagnant at $5.15 per hour since 1997. With the exception of a couple years where the minimum wage was modestly raised, the purchasing power of a minimum wage job has fallen every year since 1968. In fact, a minimum wage job of 2005 had only 58% of the purchasing power of a 1968 one.

Under Bill Clinton, while the government did raise this wage twice by a total of 90 cents, the federal government basically punted on the issue, handing it off to the state legislatures. Here in Ohio, our generous government has only this year raised our minimum wage to the federal level.

This gives Democrats a huge opportunity to use this issue much as the right used the gay marriage issue to get their voters to the polls in the last cycle. After all, who wouldn't go to the polls to vote to put a little more money in their wallets.

Indeed, labor and ACORN are doing just that right now by putting forth a Constitutional Amendment on Ohio's November ballot to raise our minimum wage to $6.85 per hour.

All politics aside though, if you have live in your car with a full time minimum wage job, the federal government should act now and not wait fro the states or the people to do their job for them.