Steve McIntyre. The Galveston County Daily News – April 6, 2016
Over the last couple of weeks, we have watched the political eforts of the working poor succeed as they have obtained a minimum wage of $15 an hour in New York and California, the 15th and ninth largest econ- omies in the world.
The wage increase was spread over time and has diferent restrictions and exceptions in each state.
Not long ago, San Marcos, adopted its own limited version of a $15-an-hour law and elected officials in other cities and counties in Texas are doing what they can to assist low-wage workers to survive in our economy.
It is difficult for locally elected public officials to address inadequate and stagnant wages in Texas since the legislature in its wisdom in 2003 decided to suddenly eliminate the right created in the federal Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 for any county or city in America to raise the wages of its local workers.
In Galveston, there has been recent discussion reported in he Galveston County Daily News about the lack of low wage workers on the island (“Nobody wants to work,” he Daily News, March 10), workers not wanting to work at certain jobs, importing foreign J-1 workers, and training future workers at Ball High School — but very little discussion about wage inequality, stagnant wages, and surviving on less than a living wage.
The Fair Labor Stan- dards Act adopted in 1938 declared the national minimum wage should be in an amount to maintain the minimum standard of living necessary for the health, efficiency, and general wellbeing of workers.
What would you, or your family do, if you were suddenly dependent upon $7.25 an hour? Forget about seeing family and friends… forget about sleeping… how many additional hours a day would you have to work so that your family could simply survive? I guess that may help explain the long waiting list for public housing and vouchers and families at food banks and households doubling up as people turn to diferent tactics to survive as they pray for a wage in an amount to maintain the minimum standard of living necessary for the health, eiciency, and general wellbeing of workers.
Put politics, put religion, put simple humanity aside, put the language of the Fair Labor Standards Act aside… could you do it on $7.25 an hour?
Stephen C. McIntyre 