I completely agree with you about the minimum wage, but the problem is that it doesn't affect the vast majority of the working class and middle class, who already earn more than the minimum wage.

I think Democrats are cowards for not supporting increases in the minimum wage more vigorously, but on the other hand the number of people it affects combined with their likelihood to vote probably makes it a fairly unappealing issue.

Since when does an issue have to benefit a majority of the population to be useful. If you remember, there was an election a couple years ago where a few hundred votes would have made the difference.

Any issue that dramatically and directly benefits 20% of the population -- actually more since it pushes up wages for those just above it -- is a major political gain for the party pushing it.

And maybe poorer folks would vote more (and there is some documentation for this) if the minimum wage was a more central part of the election debate?

First of all, it affects the right small group of people. That is, the group that includes poor, working-class whites who lately have been voting Republican on culture issues. A dynamic minimum wage campaign could siphon off a lot of these people, which (even if its not actually very many people) would be a problem for Bush. He needed every one of those working-poor white votes to even get clos enough to steal it in 2000, so taking any back from him at all is worth doing.

It also affects a larger group of people than one might think. First of all, it doesn't merely affect everyone who makes the present minimum wage. It affects everyone who makes less than the new minimum wage. Plus, if I've got a job that pays $8.00/hr and the minimum wage is $5.15/hr, what happens to my wage when the minimum wage goes up to $8.00/hr? Does my job become a minimum wage job, or do my wages increase in response to the rising minimum wage?

Also, it has the benefit of just being the right to do, already. I wish they could figure out a way to fix it to inflation. Every year the minimum wage doesn't go up, it goes down. I want to force Congress to vote it down, and have it go up automatically if they don't, rather than the present system, which is ass-backwards.

This could certainly be the wedge issue that causes public panic against the "new right". Forget who gets the wage increases and all of the other arguments. It would force the "new right" to state their position on the issue, and their postition is the entire elimination of minimum wage laws.

Just get them to state that publicly, and your 80% would run for the hills of the Democratic Party.

Nathan, you are right on in your prescription that white, religious, working class voters will come back to the Dems if the Dems pursue a vigorous economic populism.

However, what stops Dems from doing this is the fear of loss of corporate funds. The Dems wallow on this "However..." instead of simply embracing campaign finance reform in its most simple--and effective--explanation:

1. Immediate web based disclosure in return for losing most of the bureaucracy and regulations;

2. Public financing of elections so that people can run for office saying, "My only special interest is the public itself."

3. End the ban on contribution limits because it is clear that it has only benefited rich dillatantes running for office and the corporate funded candidates. Might as well let economically populist minded trust fund babies and Hollywood movie folks fund OTHER candidates of value to compete against the type of candidates we often see in the current system.

Not having to troll for money gives time for our type of candidate to hang around people at rallies, take part in parades, and re-invigorate community institutions, including labor unions.

This must be part of the economically populist platform. At the top of the economically populist platform? Labor law reform and national health insurance.

Hmmmm....I wonder if Wes Clark agrees with us? If he does, this could really get interesting...

excellent, Nathan. What Clinton-like triangulators have never realized is the point you just made:

If you're wedded to free-trade and other pro-business economics, your only way to attract the kind of white middle-class/working-class voters who used to be the Democrats' bulwark, is to appeal to them on reactionary cultural issues such as abortion and gun control. The solution is not to turn right on social issues too but to stop being so tied to pro-business economics in the first place.

However, the problem there is that with the current funding structure of politics, this may not be a winning formula either. Nevertheless, this subject must be debated rather than ignored.

There's a simple solution to the minimum wage "problem." It's indexing for inflation. If that were done (as it has for Social Security payments), the issue would go away.

So why isn't it done? Most likely because both parties like to use the minimum wage as a partisan issue to "rally their troops." And it works so well. If indexing were actually done, both parties would have to find another issue to perform the same function.

I agree, though, that raising the minimum wage has only a temporary negative impact, which affects only a few marginal businesses. The resulting layoffs, however short-lived and small in number, are nevertheless real.

woah~! what a shocker~!!!!!

My question is "Should the minimum wage be increase by $6.75 to $8/hr in california?" I am doing a report in school and i need some cons to work with in an essay!!

I am doing a similar report. $8/hr in Cali is not unreasonalble. Everything there cost more compared to other states. Some good sites are www.commondreams.org/viewsol/0825-08.htm But I am sure you are done with that report by now.