Valparaiso University President Mark Heckler's commentary "Will you help fight poverty in the region?" made some very valid points about the abysmal poverty rate in Northwest Indiana. One of every four region children lives in poverty, and these figures do not fully take into account the recent financial collapse Wall Street has bequeathed on ordinary Americans.
Heckler goes on to urge us to fight poverty by volunteering and donating. These are laudable endeavors, but they won't pull our kids out of poverty. He also mentions education, and that too is laudable. But educating our youth to compete with those who work for a few dollars a day in foreign lands won't begin to solve our poverty.
Unchecked capitalism and the two-party Democratic/Republican political system are both responsible for our financial disaster and completely incapable of correcting the mess they have created.
The Democratic Party celebrated giving workers a minimum wage increase to $6.55 per hour when a livable wage for basic needs would range from $11.41 (two adults, no kids, both working) to $25.49 (two adults, one staying home with two kids). These figures, compiled by the Vermont Livable Wage Campaign, are again for basic needs and assume employee-paid health care. The livable wage for a single person living alone with no children is $14.86.
It is simply immoral that our broken political parties have given us this $6.55 gruel. Worker productivity has increased 40 percent since the advent of the Reagan era, and at the same time real wages, adjusted for inflation for the 100 million U.S. workers without a college degree, have declined. Concurrently, the average CEO who used to make 40 times what his workers made, now makes 500 times!
Nearly a century ago, Henry Ford revolutionized factory work in America when he started paying his workers $5 a day, more than double what others were paying. He said raising wages "has the same effect as throwing a stone in a still pond" by creating an "ever-widening circle of buying" that increases everyone's prosperity. This is the kind of stimulus package we need.
Bailouts and stimulus packages will do nothing unless President-elect Obama makes a new social contract with the American people. A guaranteed livable wage, single-payer health care and the ability to live with dignity when unable to work are not just the ranting of some idealistic dreamer.
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."
This is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, championed by Eleanor Roosevelt and unanimously passed by the United Nations -- including the United States -- 60 years ago. The declaration is accepted as a fundamental of international law, and it's high time we started living up to it for our own workers.
