Soon after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi assumed office, she claimed one of her first victories. At last, low income wage earners were rescued with the passage of an amended Fair Labor Standards Act (or the Fair Pay Act of 2007). Instead of making, at minimum, $5.15 an hour, earners across the nation had to be paid at least $5.85 an hour. Soon to come, however, on July 24, 2008, American wage earners will have to earn no less than $6.55 per hour of labor (and again, on July 24, 2009, the minimum will be raised to $7.25 an hour).
In arguing for passage of the bill, one that many democrats were keen to see succeed, Speaker Pelosi proudly told a crowded National Press Club that “We have begun to make America’s families more economically secure, by raising the minimum wage . . . ”
And later, when the bill finally made it through Congress, Speaker Pelosi was more than eager to praise her own success:
This is a day that signals change . . . It’s not enough, but it’s a great start. And it’s part of a progressive agenda for economic growth in our country that talks about rewarding work, about educating our people . . . This is about the future, it’s about fairness, and it’s about having many more Americans participate in the economic success of our country, where our prosperity is shared because of a progressive economic agenda.
Since the second leg of the minimum wage hike is about to go into effect, and since we are in the middle of presidential and congressional election season that has to a great extent focused on the state of the economy, one cannot help wondering what Speaker Pelosi and the rest of her Democratic cronies have to say about the success of their “progressive economic agenda.” Here is a sampling of Speaker Pelosi’s recent remarks:
• “We will be proceeding with another stimulus package.”
• Legislative intervention is required “to assist consumers and strengthen the economy.”
• “The president has for a long time been in denial on the state of the economy … I don’t think that we have that amount of time … There are indications that this downturn is steeper than it was when we created the first stimulus package.”
• “The purchasing power of the American income is going down.”
• “Democrats in Congress are striving to work in a bipartisan way to address the nation’s serious economic challenges. Our nation has had six straight months of job losses, and we cannot afford any delay in making progress to create jobs and rebuild the American economy.”
Unsurprisingly, I was unable to find any remark from her tying the state of the economy to minimum wage. Of course, personal responsibility isn’t a trait coveted by Democrats; instead, as recently as a couple of weeks ago, Speaker Pelosi still calls the legislation a “victory.”
