Cruel to be kind

The House passes an increase in the minimum wage that could hurt the poor workers it’s meant to help | Timothy Lamer

The suburban teenager who works at a burger joint has something in common with the single mother who buses tables to provide for her children. It's the same thing they have in common with the middle-class wife who works part-time to help balance the family budget.

They all earn the minimum wage (or at least many of them did when they started their jobs), and they were the focus of congressional debate in recent weeks over a proposal to raise the national minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour.

For a coalition of liberal Democrats and moderate Republicans, the issue is a no-brainer. "There's no state in America where $5.15 an hour meets the basic needs of a working family," said Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). "We have waited far too long to give these hardworking men and women a raise." Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) called raising the minimum wage "the right thing for hardworking Americans" and compared it to recent pay raises that members of Congress have given themselves: "If Congress can get a raise, we certainly should be able to give a pay raise to working families."