Remember Herman Cain? 9-9-9?

[No Elephants]

Wasn't he once head of the National Restaurant Association (aka, the other NRA)?

Restaurants employ more than 13 million workers, so it is no surprise that industry lobbyists are paid a lot of money to ensure this workforce remains disempowered. The NRA, which has a staff of 750 people, spent more than $4 million in 2012 alone currying favor in Washington, D.C. But with recent fast-food strikes and restaurant workers increasingly speaking out against low wages and other forms of labor exploitation, the mask of the other NRA is slowly peeling away.

You have to hand it to an industry that has figured out how to keep the federal minimum wage at $7.25 an hour, where it has been stuck since Congress approved the last increase in 2007. Before that, the minimum wage languished at $5.15 for a decade. (Congress has raised the rate just three times in 30 years.) For someone working full time, the current minimum equals $15,000 a year — about the poverty level for a family of two. According to federal labor statistics, fast-food preparers make $9 an hour on average. By way of example, in Los Angeles, a living wage for an adult with one dependent is about $23 an hour.

Even more shocking is the so-called tipped minimum wage (for workers who rely on tips), which has been frozen at $2.13 since 1991. Women are especially affected by these low wages. While 52 percent of all restaurant workers are women, 66 percent of tipped workers are female, essentially creating a legalized form of gender discrimination, as the Restaurant Opportunities Center United points out. (Be sure to watch ROC United’s videos of restaurant workers explaining their plight.)

In their strikes over the past year, fast-food workers called for wage increases to $15 an hour, which is more in line with our economic growth (and with other nations’ wages). But the NRA warns ominously that such “dramatic increases” would stunt job growth and increase prices, especially of so-called value meals. Despite the fact that most Americans favor an increase in the federal minimum wage — like the proposal pending in Congress to raise the federal minimum to $10.10 an hour — the NRA is willing to defy and deceive the public to resist an increase.

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/1/how-the-restaurantlobbyblocksalivingwageforfastfoodworkers.html

Don't hate them because they're beautiful. Hate them because they are inhumane.

[Enthusiast]

1. Herman Cain seemed like such an idiot.

But Republicans and the media establishment acted as if he were a viable candidate. I don't know if he was the head of of the National Restaurant Association. Could very well be true.

What do I think about the minimum wage? I think if the RIGHTIES get their way with the TPP trade deal we will look back on these days of a $7.25 minimum wage with great fondness. And that, I believe, is the objective.

Anyone that supports, or has supported, one of these trade deals should be ashamed/afraid to show their face in public. Hear that Hillary?

[No Elephants]

2. You mean, nominee to be Hillary?

[Enthusiast]

3. That's the one.

:)