A Step on the Path to Economic Justice

by Ken Brooker Langston
Director, Disciples Justice Action Network
Coordinator, Disciples Center for Public Witness

Today, the minimum wage rises to $7.25 an hour, boosting more than 2 million hardworking employees one step up the ladder of economic opportunity.

The working poor needed this increase. Minimum-wage workers have fallen further and further behind the cost of living. In today's dollars, adjusting by the Consumer Price Index, the 1968 minimum wage would be equivalent to $10.08, half again as much as yesterday's minimum wage of $6.55. So compared to where we were yesterday, today's increase is a very welcome step in the right direction.

Nevertheless, this increase still falls short of what is needed. Nowhere in the United States - and certainly not in a generally high-cost state like Maryland - can anyone cover bare subsistence bills on the minimum wage, even at $7.25 an hour.

It is often said that the best anti-poverty program is a job. But what if that job locks the employee into poverty? Consider a relative of mine who works for minimum wage in a grocery store, as does her boyfriend. They'd like to get married and get a house together and live some small piece of the American dream. But they cannot even begin to afford it. And so, both of them live with their parents - who are on fixed incomes - and wait for what they hope will be a better day. But on the current minimum wage, it is doubtful that day will ever come.

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