Oh my, I don’t know how any of the rest of us would survive such a pernicious, exploitive environment:
Forget the minimum wage. Or outsourcing jobs overseas. The labor issue most on the minds of members of Congress yesterday was their own: They will have to work five days a week starting in January.
The horror.
Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the Maryland Democrat who will become House majority leader and is writing the schedule for the next Congress, said members should expect longer hours than the brief week they have grown accustomed to.
“I have bad news for you,” Hoyer told reporters. “Those trips you had planned in January, forget ’em. We will be working almost every day in January, starting with the 4th.”
The reporters groaned. “I know, it’s awful, isn’t it?” Hoyer empathized.
If you want to know how damned out-of-touch DC is, there’s an indication for you right there. But wait, you haven’t heard the members of the Republican Party bitchin’ yet … you know, the guys who like to lecture about productivity and hard work, especially when they’re undermining the lives of poor people who actually DO work. Check THIS out:
Hoyer said members can bid farewell to extended holidays, the kind that awarded them six weekdays to relax around Memorial Day, when most Americans get a single day off. He didn’t mention the month-long August recess, the two-week April recess or the weeks off in February, March and July.
He said members need to spend more time in the Capitol to pass laws and oversee federal agencies. “We are going to meet sufficient times, so the committees can do their jobs on behalf of the American people,” he said.
For lawmakers within a reasonable commute of Washington, longer weeks are not a burden — although they are likely to cut into members’ fundraising and campaigning activities. But for members from Alaska and Hawaii, the West Coast, or rural states, the new schedule will mean less time at home and more stress.
“Keeping us up here eats away at families,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who typically flies home on Thursdays and returns to Washington on Tuesdays. “Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families — that’s what this says.”
Hey, asshole, tell that to the mothers and fathers working long days without overtime, or two or three jobs, people who never get to SEE their families!
Just how burdensome will this new schedule be?
Next year, members of the House will be expected in the Capitol for votes each week by 6:30 p.m. Monday and will finish their business about 2 p.m. Friday, Hoyer said.
Gentle readers, I bet a lot of you wish that was YOUR work week, don’t you? Don’t forget that much of that time will consist of schmoozing and getting pictures taken, having lobbyists clap them on the back and promise them a nice vacation conference that they’re going to fly to on somebody else’s dime. Don’t forget your nice clubs, Representative!
Other than the minimum wage (which will be increased much less than it needs to be, and over an extended period of time), little of this extra time will be spent helping people who ACTUALLY work for a living, especially considering who Nancy “liberalism is off the table” Pelosi is bringing in to instruct the caucus on the measures our economy Wall Street needs to get cookin’! While they make sure Wall Street is kowtowed to, that little wage increase will …
… some low-income workers and their advocates say the wage increase won’t affect many workers and is not a way out of poverty for minimum wage workers. Since the last hike, wages for most of the lowest-paid workers have risen above the federal minimum wage, while prices for necessities such as housing and transportation have grown faster.
“We should be aware that this is an extremely moderate proposal,” said Jared Bernstein, senior economist of the Economic Policy Institute.
The minimum wage hike, which Democrats have put at the top of their agenda when the next Congress convenes in January, would affect 1.9 million hourly workers who make minimum wage and workers who get tips, who can make less than minimum wage. It would raise wages for an estimated 6.5 million workers or 4 percent of the work force … janitors, waitstaff, security guards, cashiers and store clerks … according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Adjusting for inflation, the minimum wage of $5.15 is at its lowest level since 1955. By 2009, a $7.25 minimum wage would have the spending power of $6.75 today, Bernstein calculated using Congressional Budget Office projections.
A wage increase to $7.25 would help, but “it wouldn’t put anybody in the clear,” said Cara Prince, 41, of Louisville, Kentucky. She has been working for a temporary agency for two years, doing factory, warehouse and restaurant work at $6 an hour.
“There’s a whole lot I can’t do,” because of the low pay, she said. “By the time they take taxes out, there’s nothing left. Just $23 a day.”
But the proposed increase “is not a solution to poverty,” said Matt Fellowes, a scholar at the Brookings Institute. “This is, for the most part, a symbolic effort,” he said.
In other words, it’s a con. Just another con of the “other white meat” political party that really cares not a whit for people who do real work, for people who actually drive the economy, for the drones that move the paper around that serves to keep score for the extractor class, those who are only chits on the gameboards of the grifters and confidence men who rule the investor class roost.
“At $5.15an hour, you can’t really extend yourself, you only exist,” he said. McCowan worked for four years as a day laborer, making $5.15 an hour, before landing a $6an-hour job at a community center.
With the roughly $80 a week a full-time worker would have after the federal wage hike, “You’re able to afford a telephone, able to pay your light bill on time, able to pay your rent,” he said.
If there are two people at home “it will allow you to put a little more food on the table, sustain yourself a little bit better than before,” McCowan said. “You will be able to relieve a lot of the stress.”
Stagnating wages for unskilled workers coupled with increased housing costs have put more working people at risk of being homeless. For instance, about 28 percent of homeless adults in Louisville, Kentucky homeless shelters are working, according to the Louisville Coalition for the Homeless.
Rep. Kingston, out here in the real, getting-grayer-all-the-time REAL world, it is increasingly clear that NONE of you “could care less about families”. Think about that as you park your well-paid and well-bribed ass in the no-doubt leather executive’s chair in your well-appointed office.
