The Menu for the Week Ahead
Stuff from the vegetable crisper at the Crunchiness Chophouse
Appetizers
The Jon Stewart Deep Fry: “This impeachment highlights a fundamental tenet of our legal system. All Americans, regardless of status, are entitled to a speedy trial by a jury of your cowardly partisan sycophants and henchman.”
(from a 10:32 am tweet on 2/13/2021) $15
The Pandemic Fondue Pot - As there’s more needles at the ready to deliver vaccines while vaccine availability starts to dry up like everyone knew would happen because the Cowardly Criminal Unpresident Trump never wanted to save anyone, the good news remains the national decline in new covid cases, deaths and hospitalizations.
Most states have seen new cases decline to Thanksgiving levels, some are at mid October levels and Hawaii is back to July 25th levels. Deaths are declining slower and a surprising late spike in Alabama serves as a good reminder that this is the week we may start to see some rebounds uphill. The UK variant’s been spotted more in Florida than anywhere else. Plus the post-Superbowl crowd mingles are due to show up now.
This spectacular dish is served with a fondue straw and a double mask. $6
The Boring PredickTable: Yes, we have the crowd favorite back, the Republican Senatanus. Outrage can find better pursuits than this tired old clown car show. They’re mostly overpaid crusty old white Christian extremists who took an oath on a fake Bible that some women hating frat boy wrote at a kegger. Served on stale toast with a side of Depends pull-ups. 86 cents
You Too Publix: a plate of limp lettuce. Served with a pinched loaf. $300,000
Entree $20.21
The All-You-Can-Hide Annoyment Buffet: the NY Times should never write about the Minimum Wage anymore as they almost but can’t quite grab the concept. This time, they ventured out to Fresno to discuss how $14/hr wages for restaurant workers are ‘forcing’ employers to lay off a few workers. Also this time, they do note one typically close to accurate estimate.
”According to a study by the Congressional Budget Office, raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 would decrease employment by 1.4 million — but it would still raise 900,000 people out of poverty. The report’s conclusions were wielded by both proponents and foes of the $15 proposal”.
But they never mention that we have 4 or 5 years to create jobs to replace that 1.4 million lost. Then a whole lot more people will be lifted out of poverty, 2 or 3 million people more. Nor does it mention that CA has a higher cost of living than most other states, so $14 is necessary. And why did they send a reporter way out to California?
There’s places closer. where restaurant owners can pay server staff at restaurants - where tipping is standard - as low as $2.13 an hour, like Alabama. And MS, LA, GA, SC, TN, NC, KY, KS, OK, TX, NM, UT, WY, NE, IN, and Puerto Rico. Or the closest state of all, Virginia. On federal property anywhere in the country, it’s also $2.13.
Sure, it’s anticipated that servers will also make the $5.12 an hour in tips to bring their combined minimum wage up to the standard minimum wage level of $7.25/hr - and if customers are too cheap, the restaurant owner’s on the hook to cover the shortfall, but why do places that expect tips get this sleight of hand? If I buy a sandwich and fries for $10, the unspoken deal is I’m supposed to add a 20% tip of $2. So the menu could state the real price of the meal is $12 right up front. And the owners could pay all their staff the $7.25/hr that every other employer is bound to.
It means there’s no hidden tax called a tip. There’s no time spent by diners trying to calculate 20% as most do. There’s no urge to undertip because the meal was delivered slow since a cook screwed up. Why all the extra hiding of real numbers to cover the cost of doing business? There must be a reason. Is there a tax advantage to the owner?
That would be my first assumption. Go research the answer in all 50 states to get the story right.
And better, ask the owners how much net profit their restaurant made in 2020. What was their net profit 12 years ago? Compare that difference to the rise in the cost of living in the past 12 years. I’d bet the rent that the owner’s profit has exceeded the cost of living increase in that dozen years. I’d bet anything that if a server worked their that entire time they’d get raises above the minimum wage. But it still wouldn’t match the rise in living costs.
And the brand new worker hired last year is still expeced to survive on $7.25/hr, so they are actually doing worse than the one hired in 2009 did. It’s a special kind of numbers racket.
The minimum wage began in 1938 amid the Great Depression. It was raised 10 times over 30 years, an average of every 3 years. That’s when its actual buying power peaked. It was raised 10 more times in the next 13 years but inflation was raging as OPEC raised energy prices massively and the bills came due for the cost of a war in Southeast Asia and other Cold War stuff. So all those raises still meant a decline in buying power for the workers at the bottom.
That’s when things turned extra nasty. Only twice in that first 43 years did workers have to wait 6 years for an increase. Reagan and a mostly Republican Congress made them wait more than 9 years for the next increase with GHW Bush adding over a year to that. Clinton raised it twice in his 8 years but the final 3 years of his term coupled with the first 6-1/2 years of Dubya’s two terms exceeded the 9-1/4 years Reagan/Bush held off the working poor. Dubya made them wait just 39 days less than a full 10 years.
Congress and Bush stepped up after the roaring economy peaked in the summer of 2007. While the housing bubble collapsed and tens of thousands were losing their homes due to mortgage scams, while billions flowed to save most of Wall Street and all manner of crooked banks and automakers, they did raise the minimum wage twice more, from 5.85 to 7.25, an increase of $1.40/hr. That extra $240/mo certainly helped the poorest workers but it didn’t catch them up to the buying power they had in 1997. The tech revolution was raising the cost of living across the board with housing costs leading the way.
PLUS, even the poorest workers were expected to add at least one computer and several cell phones to their shopping lists. PLUS monthly costs to access the internet. Just to keep up while their wages were falling behind.
But wait, there’s more. That last minimum wage increase took effect 6 months into Obama’s first term. While he was busy trying to stop the downward momentum of the worst financial shock since the Great Depression AND starting to shut down Dubya’s completely uncalled for War on Iraq so Osama Bin Laden could finally be captured and his Taliban cohorts could be dealt with, he also had another big burden to deal with.
From 1980 till 2007, the percentage of people covered by health insurance declined steadily except for 3 years in Clinton’s second term. (The elderly, because of Medicare, weren’t included in the CDC report )
Since healthcare costs were rising faster than the cost of living for nearly three decades, employers were dropping healthcare coverage plans for their employees. From 1978 to 2007, 20.3 million Americans lost healthcare coverage. Instead of 23 million uninsured in 1978, that nearly doubled to 43.3 million in 29 years. [see pages 4 and 5 of the CDC report].
With all the other heavy burdens on Obama, he began crafting the ACA too. From June 30, 2009 till early January of 2011 was the only period Senate Democrats held 60 seats so they could stop a GOP filibuster. In late March, 2010, after 14 months in office, Obama signed the ACA into law. It didn’t take effect till 2014 but in its first 2 years, between 20 and 24 million more Americans regained affordable healthcare. It was the biggest healthcare coverage gain since Medicare and Medicaid were passed in 1965.
It was also the only big gain for lowpaid workers since 1968.
After a 17 month stock market decline, it reversed about 7 weeks after Obama’s inauguration. A little over a year later, he’d gotten Obamacare passed. Less than 14 months later, Bin Laden met his end. Not a bad 28 months. It would take almost his full four years to get the last troops out of Iraq, ending that 9 year mess.
But efforts to raise the minimum wage were largely set aside after a Republican majority took control of the US House in 2010 which led to a constant series of attempts to overturn the ACA, reduce government spending and in 2011, a crisis in budget negotiations that narrowly avoided a major government shutdown. It was clear the House would block everything Obama and Democrats attempted in domestic stimulus as he headed to the 2012 election.
After his reelection in his first SOTU speech, he made it a major effort to gain the first minimum wage increase in 4 years. The GOP pursued budget cuts and an end to Obamacare instead, ultimately leading to a partial government shutdown in October 2013. The GOP House ultimately blocked most domestic legislation by the Democrats for the rest of Obama’s second term and were interfering wih his foreign policy initiatives as well.
The end result? Coupled wth Trump’s 4 years, it’s now been more than 11 years and 9 months since the feds increased the minimum wage. Every GOP president plus House Republicans from 2010-2018 keeps setting new records in this 40 year War on the Poor. 29 states and DC have raised their minimum wages above the federal one while the working poor in the other 21 keep losing ground. Income disparity is at highs unseen since just before the American Depression. Stories abound about how the federal government with the SNAP/Food Stamp program is technically subsidizing poor workers for retail giants such as WalMart.
And it’s not just minimum wage workers impacted. A raise there puts upward pressure on wages a bit above the minimum. Nearly 17 million workes would likely see higher wages and their spending would boost the current pandemic economy.
Current proposals don’t even have that $15/hr target set for 2021. Outside of California and a few American cities, that federal target is set for 4 years from now. FOUR. YEARS.
Workers under 25, women, POC are hardest hit by this old, torturous public policy that they consider a game. And both the tipping dependent companies and the agricultural industry get the biggest breaks so they pay less out of pocket to their workers than any other employers.
So NY Times reporting on the topic is so far off the mark that their latest effort shouldn’t even be used to line a birdcage. The poor things would die of dehydration from pooping on it so hard.
And a NY times reporter or the editor assigning it couldn’t afford to drive halfway to New Jersey if they ever had to experience the reality of the minimum wage.
Restaurant owners who can’t afford to pay the entire minimum wage to their employees really should set up shop in a developing country. Americans are better off without such weakass businesses.
And Democrats, don’t you DARE negotiate away this badly overdue wage increase. Make America Return To A Slave Economy is not a healing plan.
Desserts
There is no dessert. We don’t do just desserts in America no more. Go home !