Not long ago our San Jose City Council was debating whether or not our "Living Wage Ordinance" should be "modified" such that companies renting property from the city of San Jose would be exempt from paying a "living wage."
As I watched the "debate," one of the city council members (one of two republicans) argued that low paying jobs were just there for short term employment, that these were not jobs people filled (or should fill) on a long term basis, and well, if you want go here and then go to 1.53.19 or so of the video to hear the republican go on and on.
Of course we all know he was wrong, and today there was yet another article revealing just how wrong the GOP is on middle class jobs.
What has happened to those once solid middle class jobs that provide ways to move up the ladder? This is what has happened:
Yet for now, the lower-wage jobs once seen as stepping stones are increasingly being held for longer periods by older, better-educated, more experienced workers.
The trend extends well beyond Walmart, the nation’s largest employer. It’s partly why average inflation-adjusted income has declined 9 percent for the bottom 40 percent of households since 2007, even as incomes for the top 5 percent now slightly exceed where they were when the recession began late that year, according to the Census Bureau.
Research shows occupations that once helped elevate people from minimum wage into the middle class have disappeared in the past three recessions dating to 1991.
The reality, as most of us here know, is that low paying jobs are no longer "entry" level jobs for high school students, and yet the ideology of the GOP refuses to believe this, refuses to see what is really happening NOW and those who are elected Republican officials continue to state what is clearly NOT reality in our economy today.
This is just one more example of how the GOP today continues to live in a world that simply does not exist except in their mind, a world they create and live in, but the rest of us live in reality which is far different.
Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that many of our so called "Democrats" on the city council buy into this false reality as well. And four of these so called "Democrats" are running for mayor of San Jose, and all of these "Democrats" were against raising our minimum wage, vote time after time for subsides for business, and helped to pass a measure that has destroyed public safety in our city (and the major part of which was ruled unconstitutional by the court.)
And so we fight on against those who just cannot accept the reality of the world we live in today, we have to fight, and we need to stand together if we are to succeed. This fight is not easy, and we will not convince everyone of the reality they live in, but slowly, as the "reality" creeps ever more into the lives of Americans they will realize that what they believe and what they are living are two very different worlds.