Minimum wage in USA (#238, Topic M)

The miminum hourly wage in USA is $5.15. Over a year's time, a person working 2,080 hours (40 hours x 52 weeks) earns a total of $10,712. Deducting income taxes and social-security withholding, one's net earning is approximately $8,000. To a person living in a third-world country (where everything, particularly food and shelter, is low-priced), $10,000 or even $8,000 is a lot of money. But, everything is relative; in USA, one earning $10,000 a year is living below the poverty line. Interestingly, in USA, despite this below-poverty-line minimum hourly wage, it has not been changed in a decade -- it stood at $5.15 for ten solid years. During this period, salaries of members of the Congress have been adjusted ten times -- like clockwork, once a year, every year. A couple of days ago, I saw a TV image (produced by CNBC, a business-oriented program, not a campaign ad) showing the amount of time needed to earn $10,000 by various entities. Leading the pack is a financial-service institution (the one the current Treasury secretary served as its CEO before resigning to accept his new position); it takes that institution a solid 80 seconds to earn $10,000. After a couple of other listings (I did not read fast enough to catch their identity), the TV image gives "member of the House" -- he/she needs six days to earn $10,000. (In all fairness, this is a tongue-in-cheek calculation. A member of the house earns, in 2006, $165,0000. During the year, the House met 95 times/days. Thus, a member of the House earned $1,736 for each of these 95 days, or $10,000 in slightly less than 6 days of attendance.) In the caboose position is the minimum-wage worker; he/she needs 48.5 weeks to make $10,000. In today's Washington Post, I read that six states (Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and Ohio) have a ballot initiative, to be voted upon on November 7, on raising the minimum wage from $5.15 to (for Ohio) $6.85 and indexed to inflation. It is about time. In any case, I am for it (#231).