Removing Minimum Wage...Just The Beginning

On the left-winged blog Daily Kos, I found an interesting blog written by Jed Lewison, aimed at the working class in America, particularly those on the lower end of the payroll. Lewison's blog was written this week about many Republican senate nominees expressing their interests in removing or lowering minimum wages in our country. He bases this off of recent remarks by GOP Senate nominee Joe Raese, from West Virginia, who promised to repeal the Fair Labor Standards Act,  which would remove the set minimum wage. When looking furthur into Mr. Raese's statements, he criticizes FDR's Labor Act, stating that it "didn't solve any problems then and it hasn't solved any problems in 50 years." Lewison claims that in their effort to abolish the minimum wage, they will literally remove any and all protection workers have, including key protections such as overtime. Lewison's evidential support is the quotes of these Republican nominees (including Linda McMahon and Chris Dudley) speaking out against minimum rate laws that are currently set.


I completely agree with Lewison's argument that the Republicans would be setting us back a century by changing these laws. While we are in a recession right now, we were also in one when FDR created the Fair Labor Act, and he is historically known for helping to pull our country out of that Depression. Therefore, Raese's claims that it didn't work or make an impact don't really have a leg to stand on. While Lewison has a valid argument that removing the Act all together would be a GIANT step back for our country, he also failed to expand further on some of the GOP nominee's plans of not completely eliminating it, but to simply modify it. So I think that his logic is sound, if based simply off of Mr. Raese's ideas and statements, but not sound for grouping all the GOP senate nominees together.