After I blogged yesterday about the shameful fact that the richest country in the world has a minimum wage that 1) hasn't budged since 1997 and 2) leaves hardworking people and families living in poverty, I came across this fact: 11,600 minimum-wage workers could be paid for an entire year from the Yahoo CEO's 2004 compensation.
Just think about that for a while. These numbers come from "By the Numbers"--a list put together by Representative Martin Olav Sabo, a Democrat from Minnesota. Sabo's Income Equity Act of 2005 would limit the tax-deductible salary of a corporation's CEO to twenty-five times the annual salary of its lowest-paid worker. Currently, that limit is set at $1 million, regardless of the salaries of the workers. There's a lot more to be done to achieve true economic justice and fairness in this country, but I say this is a proposal that Dems should fight for.
For more on how to make America help the working poor, read this powerful op-ed by former vice presidential candidate John Edwards and John Wilhelm, president of UNITE HERE hotel workers union.
Katrina vanden Heuvel
After I blogged yesterday about the shameful fact that the richest country in the world has a minimum wage that 1) hasn’t budged since 1997 and 2) leaves hardworking people and families living in poverty, I came across this fact: 11,600 minimum-wage workers could be paid for an entire year from the Yahoo CEO’s 2004 compensation.
Just think about that for a while. These numbers come from "By the Numbers"–a list put together by Representative Martin Olav Sabo, a Democrat from Minnesota. Sabo’s Income Equity Act of 2005 would limit the tax-deductible salary of a corporation’s CEO to twenty-five times the annual salary of its lowest-paid worker. Currently, that limit is set at $1 million, regardless of the salaries of the workers. There’s a lot more to be done to achieve true economic justice and fairness in this country, but I say this is a proposal that Dems should fight for.
For more on how to make America help the working poor, read this powerful op-ed by former vice presidential candidate John Edwards and John Wilhelm, president of UNITE HERE hotel workers union.
Katrina vanden HeuvelTwitterKatrina vanden Heuvel is editor and publisher of The Nation, America’s leading source of progressive politics and culture. An expert on international affairs and US politics, she is an award-winning columnist and frequent contributor to The Guardian. Vanden Heuvel is the author of several books, including The Change I Believe In: Fighting for Progress in The Age of Obama, and co-author (with Stephen F. Cohen) of Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with Gorbachev’s Reformers.