Low minimum wage means taxes subsidize wealthy corporations

The CEO of McDonalds got a 69 percent raise last year. Steve Easterbrook made $1.1 million base salary with a bonus up to $1.7 million.

Even if you have never purchased a McDonalds product, your tax dollars are a portion of these increases going to Easterbrook and every other CEO in the service industry.

I’m picking on McDonalds but, like all of the U.S. corporations, there is little pressure to pay a living wage to the service industry workers.

Right now, Americans are working full time, sometimes two or more jobs, and they are still falling below the poverty level. These full-time workers are eligible to receive food stamps, welfare checks and other community assistance.

My wife works for our local church and manages the benevolent fund. She is very good steward of the church’s money, and she is stringent about the rules and requirements for those requesting assistance from our church.

She checks things out. After the need is verified, the money goes directly to the rental property or gas station — she doesn’t just hand out cash.

A common scenario is that a husband is sick and can’t work. But a new phenomenon is occurring more frequently — adults in McDonald’s uniforms are crossing the street on their break and showing up at our church for help.

The average — not lowest — hourly pay for an employee at McDonalds is $8.50.

They are living in poverty. If they get sick, they can’t pay the rent. If their car breaks down, they can’t get to work.

We know how it is supposed to work in a capitalist society: workers leave the low-paying job and move to a new employer that pays a higher wage.

In the perfect capitalistic world, corporations compete among themselves by increasing pay to obtain these workers.

But the system is broken. Corporations are taking advantage of our decency and letting their workers live in “tolerable” poverty due to the safety nets provided by our government and charitable institutions.

There’s another remedy other than raising the minimum wage: Allow workers to collectively bargain, through a union.

Corporations have spent decades and millions of dollars to dismantle unions, using political influence including supporting anti-union politicians who approve more stringent anti-union state laws and appoint more conservative judges who have ruled against unions.

These efforts have been very successful. Union membership has gone from 33 percent of workers to only 10 percent today in less than 50 years.

Conservatives who whine for the “good old days” rarely mention that is the time when unions were at their peak, creating a large and robust middle class through collective bargaining.

Corporations have no incentive to raise the minimum wage without pressure from a union. And now they hope that no one will notice that our tax money and charitable giving is subsidizing their worker pay.

TCU economics professor John Harvey showed that the historical records prove that increasing the minimum wage has no serious lasting impact to the unemployment rate.

Microsoft executive George Santino published recently that raising the minimum wage doesn’t really matter since employers would pass the cost on to the consumer.

It is a better economy when consumers pay the true cost of goods rather than having products subsidized by taxes and charitable contributions.

Americans are a decent people. Raise the minimum hourly pay and we’ll gladly pay the true cost of our neighbors’ wages.

This story was originally published August 4, 2016 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Low minimum wage means taxes subsidize wealthy corporations."