First World Wages for Chicagoans. The New York Times reported Thursday that "Chicago Orders ‘Big Box’ Stores to Raise Wage".

After months of fevered lobbying and bitter debate, the Chicago City Council passed a groundbreaking ordinance yesterday requiring “big box” stores, like Wal-Mart and Home Depot, to pay a minimum wage of $10 an hour by 2010, along with at least $3 an hour worth of benefits.

Some of the enormous, exploitative corporations affected announced that they intend to challenge that legislation in court, pretending that the "equal protection clause" of the Constitution forbids discrimination against corporations of a certain size, even tho, as the Times's story points out, "a legal analysis by the Brennan Center at New York University said there was ample precedent for selective imposition of minimum wages by size of business." The equal protection clause applies to people, not corporations.
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Chicago's mayor had not made plain by Thursday whether he would sign the ordinance or veto it. He would be a fool to veto it, for various reasons, not least of which is that even if one were to see the measure as protecting smaller businesses that charge higher prices, it is those very prices on which sales tax, a major source of city revenue, is based. The lower the price charged by a big-box outfit, the smaller the sales tax the city receives.

The bill comes at a time when many large retailers are increasing their presence in large cities. * * * large retailers had saturated suburban markets and had powerful incentives to move into urban areas.

The big-box companies pretend they have the upper hand and cities and towns must cave in to them or they will set up shop in other municipalities nearby. The reality, however, is that they have already set up shop in pretty much all the suburban areas they can draw business from, and now must move into major cities or content themselves with stagnant revenues. Executives dare not go to shareholders with stagnant revenues, on enterprises that do not grow. So who has the upper hand now?
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The Times points out that:

The drive to raise state and city minimum wages has grown out of frustration with Congress, which has left the federal minimum wage at $5.15 an hour since 1997. At least 22 states have enacted somewhat higher minimum wage laws.

Tho the House of Representatives the very next day voted an increase in the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour by 2010, it would take effect only if the bill in which that provision is contained is passed intact. However, the larger bill calls for a radical diminution in the estate tax to benefit the very wealthiest people in the Nation, so might not pass the Senate.

The bill calls for the minimum wage to rise to $7.25 an hour from $5.15 an hour, an increase that would be phased in over the next three years.

On the estate tax, the bill would exempt $5 million of an individual's estate and $10 million of [a] couple's taxes by 2005 [sic; 2015?]. In addition, estates valued at $25 million would be taxed at the current capital gains rate of 15%, a rate that is scheduled to rise to 20%. The remainder of the estate would be taxed at a rate targeted to fall to 30% by 2015.

Under the current law, the estate tax is due to be phased out completely by 2010, only to be reinstated in 2011, with a tax rate of 55% on estates larger than $1 million.

House members of the Republican Party passed this measure in an election year, pledging stingily to increase the minimum wage for the poorest Americans starting next year ONLY if the richest Americans can cheat the Government out of hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax now due from dead guys, who sure as hell don't need so much as one red cent.
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When will we slaughter Republicans and chop them up for parts for the poor? The only good Republican is a dismembered Republican. I would love to see us create a lot of good Republicans.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 2,578.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:40 PM