Today We Have Bipartisan Support for Raising the Minimum Wage!

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Over at NRO, Kevin Williamson says that he likes the idea of indexing the minimum wage to inflation and being done with it for good, but Democrats are simply too treacherous to negotiate with:

The problem is that in the current political climate, a deal is never a deal. Republicans might agree to a small increase in the minimum wage in return for indexing it to CPI and then leaving it alone — if not forever, then at least for some meaningful period of time. Once the long-term rule is established, markets can adjust, and investments can be made. In theory, that would be a pretty good deal, but there is nothing to stop Democrats from advocating further increases to the indexed minimum wage every time they feel the need to trot out a little class-warfare artillery, which is about once a week, apparently.

Well, I guess there’s never any guarantee that some Democrat or another won’t “trot out” a proposal to increase the minimum wage whenever the mood hits them, but will “Democrats” do this? Let’s take a look at an analogous situation. For the first three decades of its existence, Social Security benefits were increased sporadically, whenever Congress had a collective mind to do so. Then, in 1975, benefits were indexed to inflation.

So what happened after that? Have Democrats been pressing for benefit hikes every week or so? I’m not an expert on the legislative history of Social Security over the past 38 years, but I’m pretty sure the answer is no. In 1983, Dems agreed to a small benefit cut as part of the Greenspan Commission deal. In 1993, Bill Clinton effectively cut benefits again by approving a measure that raised taxes on Social Security payouts for higher income beneficiaries. In 2012, Barack Obama expressed a willingness to cut benefits yet again by changing the way CPI is calculated.

But higher benefits? That’s never really been on the table. What has been on the table, of course, are relentless efforts from Republicans to slash benefits in various ways, which Democrats have almost uniformly opposed. If Republicans do the same for a minimum wage indexed to inflation, they can probably expect the same.

But my guess is that an increase to nine bucks, along with indexing the minimum wage to CPI, would satisfy most Democrats for quite a while. It wouldn’t satisfy all lefties, but that’s a rather different thing. It’s congressional Democrats who have to stick to the deal, and there’s really no good reason to think they wouldn’t.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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