Low Minimum Wage Killing the Middle Class - by Thom Hartmann, Oakland Press, MI
Looking at the arc of U.S. history, we discover we've been on a downward spiral ever since Ronald Reagan declared war on working people in 1981. Companies cut prices and then cut wages so they can still turn a hefty profit. Folks whose wages have been cut can't afford to shop at midrange stores like Macy's, so they have to buy at "low-- wage" discount stores like Wal-- Mart. That drives more midrange stores out of business and increases pressure on discount stores to send their prices even lower. To compensate for lower prices, they lower wages so they can still turn a hefty profit. On and on it goes-- until the people working those jobs are no longer middle class and have to work two or three jobs to survive.
Our choice is not between low prices at Wal-- Mart and high prices at Wal-- Mart. It's between low prices at Wal-- Mart with lousy paychecks and no protection for labor, and the prices Wal-- Mart had when Sam Walton ran the company and nearly everything was made in the United States and people had good union jobs and decent paychecks.