James Gill

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Business lobbyists, of course, never talk about such vulgar considerations as maximizing profits for the members of the organizations they represent. They just want to help the poor and have concluded that the best way to do that is to not to pay them too much.

Too much apparently would be anything more than the current federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour, which has remained unchanged for years. A gross income of $206 was once a reasonable recompense for working 40 hours a week in this country, but you'd practically have to go back to FDR for that to be true. Right now it is clearly derisory.

A bill by state Sen. Charles Jones, D-Monroe, would raise the minimum wage in Louisiana to $6.15 an hour. That would still be somewhat short of a king's ransom, but the prospect of paying a working stiff $246 a week filled the suits with alarm. They were out in force at a Senate committee hearing Monday, their hearts purportedly bleeding for the poor, for whom the usual dire consequences were predicted if a raise were granted.

The logical extension of the suits' arguments is that forcing people to work for a buck an hour would go a long way towards solving the problem of poverty in this country.

Charles Hodson of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, Jim Patterson of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry and Tom Weatherly of the Louisiana Restaurant Association were on hand at the hearing to urge that the poor be shielded from the threat of a living wage. Employers might find that a worker with skills meriting $5.15 an hour was not worth an extra buck and hand out a pink slip, they argued.

Lordy, how many skills do you need to merit $6.15 an hour? A guy worth any less than that probably couldn't get dressed and find his way to work. Ever since Katrina employers in New Orleans have accepted about $8 an hour as the minimum rate for a warm body anyway.