Leo Gerard: The Terrible Fear of Paying the Poor Too Much

The GOP is so afraid that the nation’s lowest wage earners will get a raise that Republican politicians across the country are working overtime to outlaw wages above $7.25 an hour for these workers. 

They’re passing legislation forbidding towns and counties from raising the minimum wage in their jurisdictions.  Republicans insist: no pay bump for those raking in $15,080 a year!  On the other side, however, there’s no amount of pay, perks, private jets, premium health plans and golden parachutes that Republican politicians believe could possibly be too much for a CEO. 

That Oracle CEO Larry Ellison took home $78,440,657 last year is completely reasonable in the minds of Republicans.  That it would take a minimum wage earner 5,201 years to earn what Larry took out of his company for one 365-day period is, according to Republican-think, a morally correct calculation. 

Republican Mary Fallin, governor of Oklahoma, is among them.  She signed a law last week forbidding towns in her state from increasing the minimum wage.  Fallin, whose state lays claim to the third highest proportion of minimum wage earners in the country, a percentage that rose from 2011 to 2012, justified denying these workers a few extra pennies an hour by saying that would raise prices. 

Republicans are on the wrong side on this.  Seventy-one percent of Americans would vote to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour if given the chance, Gallup found last year.  And it’s happening.  As Republicans in the House block President Obama’s proposal to increase the minimum to $10.10 an hour, states and cities are doing it themselves. 

They don’t believe that there are a dozen Wharton School MBAs who could take his place tomorrow and, frankly, sell hamburgers just as well for say, $280,000 rather than $28 million.  They don’t see how his excessive pay might affect dividends to shareholders or the cost of fries.  They’re blind to the fact that the majority of McDonald’s fans are willing to pay a few more cents for a Happy Meal if it means a higher wage for the struggling young mother serving the fast food. 

Republicans don’t believe in paying a living wage to workers they disrespect, like the home health aides providing loving 24-hour care to the frail grandmas of GOP politicians across this country, like the housekeepers who clean GOP presidential hopefuls’ hotel rooms as they campaign across the nation, like the McDonald’s workers denied paid sick days who make extraordinary efforts not to cough on the fries that super-sized Republicans stuff in their faces. 

They’re so much better than the heart surgeon who spends all day every day meticulously saving people’s lives.  They’re 331 times as important as the firemen who rush into a burning home to save a woman’s life.  They’re 331 time more valuable than the policemen and paramedics who ran toward the sound of an explosion a year ago in Boston to rescue bomb victims.  To Republicans, those CEOs are 331 times more precious than the teacher who nurtures the shy child, encourages the faltering student or refuses to abandon the recalcitrant pupil. 

Republicans’ fear of paying too much is terrible.  Not because of GOP angst.  No, because it causes underpaid workers to suffer.  Because it means Republicans are so enthralled with the 1 percent who write supersized campaign checks that they devalue the contributions of everyday workers to the welfare of America.  Because it means Republicans will continue to blockade efforts to resolve the growing income inequality that is rupturing the economy and the social cohesion of this nation.