Save Social Security - Raise the Minimum Wage

Yesterday Ben Nelson of Nebraska made a genius move by introducing a "sense of the Senate" bill for vote. It read as follows: "It is the sense of the Senate that Congress should reject any Social Security plan that requires deep benefit cuts or a massive increase in debt." He got Republicans on the record to support benefit cuts and massive debt (all but five of them, that is: Collins, Snowe, Dewine, Specter, and Graham). I expect lots of commercials saying "Sen. (BLANK) voted to cut your Social Security benefits and add massive amounts of deb." That's how the game works.

There's another opportunity for Democrats to beat Republicans over the head with a Social Security vote. It concerns a core Democratic policy, one that Kerry mentioned often on the stump, that has broad public support: raising the minimum wage.

Depending on what you read, either 2.1 million or 1 million workers in Nevada alone or as much as 12 million workers are making the minimum wage or only slightly more. Let's split the difference and say 6 million. It's probably more, but we'll be conservative. Ted Kennedy and others have suggested raising the federal minimum wage by two dollars, from $5.15 an hour to $7.15 an hour. This is sensible legislation which says to America that if you work 40 hours a week, you will not have to live in poverty, you will not have to choose between food and shelter, you will not have to work multiple jobs to survive in the richest country on the planet. Let's see what raising the minimum wage by $2 an hour does to FICA revenue.

Under the current law, a minimum wage worker makes $41.20 a day, of which $5.11 goes into FICA revenue. This represents the 6.2% taken out of the paycheck, and the 6.2% on top of that contributed by the employer. If the minimum wage worker was making $7.15 a hour and therefore $57.20 for an 8-hour day, the FICA revenue would climb to $7.09, an increase of around two dollars per day per worker. With the available, extremely conservative statistics of 6 million workers, that's $12 million in additional revenue per day, $4.38 billion per year, and $175.2 billion over the next 40 years, when the trust fund will supposedly run out. That's not the entire solution, but it's a pretty large component. And like I said, those are conservative estimates. Further, it doesn't take into account everyone making between $5.16 and $7.14 an hour, whose raises would add that much more to FICA revenue.

Raising the minimum wage is not a tax increase, not a benefit cut, and gives everyday workers a bit of humanity. Tying it to Social Security turns the issue into a billy club. If you thought "Senator BLANK voted to cut your Social Security benefits" was bad, how does "Senator BLANK voted against fixing Social Security and lifting poor Americans out of poverty" sound? The Republican counter-argument to raising the minimum wage is always that it will hurt businesses and cost jobs. It's a silly argument, but when you tie it to Social Security, the ball in the batter's box gets huge for Democrats. "Why do the Republicans say no to fixing Social Security? Why are they siding with corporate interests over the people of America? Would they rather see poverty on our streets?"

I would hope Senator Kennedy would introduce the "Fixing Social Security Through A Living Wage" Act today.