Greed lives.

PositionIncrease in minimum wage

Not only does The Wall Street Journal oppose increasing the minimum wage, the Journal's editors recently editorialized against the whole concept of a minimum wage, calling it "a crackpot idea." Why? Because they are concerned about the poor, of course: "We believe the minimum wage hurts poor people, killing jobs on the first rung of the career ladder for the most vulnerable members of society."

Never mind that the value of the minimum wage, currently $4.25 an hour, has been shrinking steadily for forty years, and is now worth eighty-eight cents an hour less than in 1956.

Never mind that wages and standards of living for working-class Americans have declined disastrously over the last two decades.

The Journal likes to call people at the bottom of the economy "beginning workers"--ignoring the reality that many of those who work at low-wage, dead-end jobs are not moving up.

The Wall Street Journal would like its readers to think that the interests of working people and the interests of millionaires are one and the same. Nothing could be further from the truth.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, when U.S. workers' wages increased by 1 percent in the first quarter of this year--the sharpest increase they've seen since 1991--economists on Wall Street began to worry.

"Analysts say it has become increasingly clear that the economy has pulled back from what many regarded last winter as the brink of recession," The New York Times reported. "But in the `good news equals bad news' environment that often prevails on Wall Street, some economists have begun to worry that faster growth and higher incomes might rekindle inflation."

In other words, the interests of the wealthy run counter to the interests of most working Americans. The fact that there are distinct economic classes in America with opposing economic interests is not exactly breaking news. But it isn't just cranky conservative editors who won't admit it.

During the primaries, the only Presidential candidate to raise the issue of economic inequality was rightwing nutball Pat Buchanan, and it made him very popular. "He was pointing out the obvious, number-one fact in America, which is declining wages and living standards for the vast majority of people in this country," says political essayist Barbara Ehrenreich. "It's an amazing thing to keep quiet."

Yet up until recently, when the Democrats noticed that Buchanan's economic populism did well in the polls, politicians of both parties...

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