President George Bush has reinstated the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage law that he suspended in the Gulf Coast area after Hurricane Katrina. Good for him. It’s one thing to make a mistake and another to live with it needlessly.
Next, we urge the president and congressional Republicans to seek an increase in the federal minimum wage, a floor for low-wage workers that hasn’t been raised since 1997.
The White House said Wednesday that Davis-Bacon will go back into effect Nov. 8, exactly two months after Bush suspended it. The Post criticized the suspension of Davis-Bacon because it dealt a double blow to construction workers of the region – many of whom lost their homes in the hurricane and were then forced to work at substandard wages or be replaced by workers from out of state who were willing to toil for the low wages.
Bipartisan opposition in Congress prompted the president to reverse course and reinstate the prevailing wage law. We hope Bush will show the same flexibility on the minimum wage, which has lost 17 percent of its purchasing power in the last eight years. The minimum is just too low.
How low is it?
The Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported that health insurance premiums for a family of four now run an average of $10,880 per year – $168 more than the annual wages of a full-time minimum-wage worker.
So low that Lee Scott, chief executive of the notoriously low-wage Wal-Mart, recently said his company will lobby for an increase, so low-income workers can buy more of his company’s products.
When even Wal-Mart thinks entry-level wages are too low, they’re way too low. The minimum wage should be raised to at least $6.50 an hour and indexed to the Consumer Price Index thereafter.
