Friday, Wal-Mart Stores, the nation’s largest retailer with workforce of nearly 1.3 million people in the United States and approximately 2.2 million worldwide, announced plans to raise the minimum hourly wage it pays their U.S. employees to $9.00 an hour.
Progress toward larger objectives is always good and at times even noteworthy. Accordingly, the recent announcement by Wal-Mart Stores has received considerable buzz in the media.
What does this news and related wage indicators tell us about our progress toward realizing the possibility of everyone having the opportunity to earn a living wage?
While wages paid by our nations largest employers are certainly a pivotal defining component of this goal, federal and state minimum wage laws are the statutory archetype from which they take their lead.
United States federal minimum wage as defined in the Fair Labor Standards Act, effective July 24, 2009, is $7.25 per hour. However, many states have their own perspectives and supporting laws regarding what employee protections, including minimum wage, serve their constituents best. California, Texas, Georgia, Wyoming and Oklahoma are good, representative examples in this regard.
At the progressive high-end, California’s current minimum wage is $9.00 per hour, up from $8.00 per hour effective July 1, 2014 and headed to $10.00 per hour effective January 1, 2016—that is unless you are a full-time sheepherder. Sorry California sheepherders, no matter where your sheep roam, your pay is capped with a minimum monthly salary of $1,422.52.
However, as the saying goes, it could be worse–you could work in Georgia, Wyoming or Oklahoma. While not the definitive low-end of the spectrum, at $5.15 an hour, the minimum wage laws of Georgia and Wyoming are excellent examples of literal interpretation of the words, “minimum wage.” Be that as it is, most would agree that something is better than nothing.
Paradoxically, if you are fortunate enough to find employment in the state of Oklahoma you are provided one of the best opportunities to truly try that expression on. One might expect great labor and wage possibilities from a state with an official motto of “Labor omnia vincit,” which translated from the Latin means “Labor conquers all things.” Almost as a tragic irony, the great state of Oklahoma guarantees employees laboring for small businesses—those with nine or fewer full-time employees at any one location, or with annual gross sales at or less than $100,000 irrespective of the number of full time employees, the minimum wage protection of $2.00 an hour. To this we ask at $2.00 and hour, labor conquers all things for whom?
Multiplying these guaranteed rates of minimum hourly pay, ($9.00, $5.15 and $2.00), by 2,080 hours (the number of hours in 52 weeks of the year, worked by a regular full-time employee at the standard 40 hours per week) and rounding to the nearest cent, these wages amount to annual pretax incomes of $18,920, $10,712 and $4,160 respectively.
Only one of these wages fairly squeaks above the ridiculously low Federal Poverty Level for a single person with no defendants. These numbers are revised and issued annually by the U.S. Census Bureau and used to determine qualification to an array of social services such as Medicade, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and cost assistance when buying insurance through the State or Federal Health Insurance Marketplace.
Contrary to the strong stock performance evidenced recently on Wall Street, financial viability is well out of reach to most Americans. In fact even amongst those who have employment, the majority are working significantly harder for wages equivalent to the buying power of that from almost twenty years ago while defaults on subprime auto loans are at record levels, delinquency on personal debt obligations are similarly high and income mobility has actually reversed itself creating a significant and growing gap between the financial wellbeing of the top 1% and the rest of the country.
At a time when the alarming condition of Earth’s environmental health is so closely paced by the critical condition of economic health both here and abroad, we say look within.
Nothing is separate from any another thing. We create the world that we live in with each breath and action of our lives. While this may be the responsibility of all, change, wellbeing, vitality, and justice starts with one—you. Drink in the pleasure and blessing that is each moment we are given in our life and live in action with each opportunity, large or small, to stand for our best, verdant and justice world—from the products that you chose to buy, to the mindful way you exist in the spaces that you blessed to be in each day.
At every opportunity ask yourself how each of your thoughts, choices and actions impact everything that they are connected with. Strive to be impeccable in your thoughts and actions, live wholeheartedly and then bathe in the resulting light that will ultimately be shared by all.
As studies clearly document, children that are released from juvenile correctional facilities seldom succeed in school.
