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Selling Out Low-Wage Workers...Again

The good news is, 1.4 million California workers earning minimum wage will get a $1.50 pay increase, over the next two years. The bad news is, the unwillingness of Phil's opponent to stand up to his big-business contributors means that workers were again denied the potential to have this increase mean anything in the marketplace.

Lawmakers backed off on their push for a minimum-wage increase tied to annual increases in the cost of living, the absence of which has caused the purchasing power of the minimum wage to decline more than 11% since it was last raised in 2002, and more than 33% since it started in 1968. The California Budget Project has a great summary of this issue here (PDF). They did this because Phil's opponent would have vetoed the bill, as he has twice already. The first time he vetoed the increase it did not include the automatic cost of living adjustments; he just wasn't up for re-election then.

It's important to note that Phil Angelides, however, does think it's a problem that people who are working full time still have to live in poverty. He sums it up perfectly to the L.A. Times:

Schwarzenegger's opponent in November, Democratic state Treasurer Phil Angelides, said that if elected he would sign any bill indexing minimum wage increases to inflation so that "working families are not held hostage to politics."

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