Corporations these days are screwing workers six ways from Sunday. First, the minimum wage has not been raised since 2009 (and therefore not even kept up with inflation). Second, corporations are not paying for increased productivity gains over the last 10 years. Third, due to increased productivity (fewer workers accomplishing the same work), there are more workers than jobs, so corporations can pay even lower salaries. Fourth, corporations don't fund defined benefit retirement programs anymore, which in the past put the burden of investing and paying out on the corporation. Now corporations contribute minimally or not at all and put the burden of investing on the employee. Fifth, the health care burden has been shifted primarily to the employee, who now not only pays for premiums but also has huge deductibles and copays. Is it any wonder people are getting desperate?
Corporate profits are at an all time high as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product and wages are at an all time low. It's time corporations started paying a living wage to the people out there generating their revenues instead of profits and dividends to wealthy shareholders who contribute nothing to society.
Link to NY Times article on corporate profits vs. wages: http://www.nytimes.com/...
McDonald's generated $19 billion in revenue in 2013 and $5.5 billion in profits. That's a huge profit margin. They can afford to pay their people.
Corporations that threaten to cut workers if the minimum wage goes up are bluffing people into not acting in their own self interest. Who's going to make the hamburgers? Who's going to collect the money?
CEOs in this country make 475X what the average worker makes. In European countries that figure is around 15X. And US CEO pay bears no relationship to performance. They're all paid mega millions, even when their company ends up in bankruptcy.
The definition of the Consumer Price Index (CPI, or inflation) has changed twice since 1980 and no longer reflects reality. The pre-1980 CPI in 2014 was NINE percent. And yet the increase in Social Security checks was 1.7%. Social Security and the minimum wage need to rise at the rate of pre-1980 CPI over that entire time frame. A proposed minimum wage of $10.10, while an improvement from $7.25, still significantly understates the true impact of inflation.
Link to true CPI: http://www.shadowstats.com/...
You just have to look around. Prices of groceries and healthcare are skyrocketing. The price of gasoline is up from $1.50 in 2004 to $3.50 in most of 2014 That's a compound annual growth rate of 9%.
The Occupy movement would succeed if people just acted in their own self-interests. But America is in the process of becoming an idiocracy, fueled mainly by fear and hate. And sold to the highest bidder via the legalized bribery that is lobbying. Corporations have it all figured out. Screw the workers and pay the politicians. Citizen's United magnified the amounts corporations could use to bribe politicians. The exact opposite of what the founding fathers intended.