End corporate whining

The campaigns to raise the minimum wage and to organize fast-food and grocery workers deserve support.

America's largest employer, Wal-Mart, for example, pays such low wages that its employees are the largest group of food stamp and Medicaid recipients. A report from Congressman Alan Grayson estimated that Wal-Mart employees receive $1,000/month on average in public assistance payments. Another example of how sorry Wal-Mart's wages are: This week a Wal-Mart in Ohio held a food drive for its own employees.

America's second-largest employer, McDonald's, tried to produce a budget showing how its employees could live on the minimum wage -- and failed. A study this year found that "52% of families of fast food workers receive assistance from a public program."

Don't believe corporate shills whining and puling that these profitable companies can't afford to pay a living wage (Canada, UK, New Zealand, Belgium, Australia, France, Netherlands, Ireland and Luxembourg all have higher minimum wage settings than the US -- some countries, like Sweden and Germany, that don't legislate wage minimums, encourage collective bargaining instead). Elizabeth Warren calculates that if the US minimum wage had kept pace with inflation it would now be $22/hr. The activists campaigning for an increase are asking for a $15/hr minimum. Meanwhile, the White House's embrace of a $9/hr minimum is shameful and pathetic, designed more to head off a meaningful increase than to solve the problem.