MinimumWage. 

One unambiguous outcome of the 2006 midterm elections is that every time a proposal to raise the minimum wage appeared on the ballot, it won.

This outcome may be liable to downplaying or dismissal in the smoke and mirrors of who’s-up-who’s-down, but minimum wage initiatives swept all six states proposing them -- Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and Ohio.

The results were no razor thin margins. Arizona, previously with no law establishing a minimum wage, voted for its Proposition 202 66% to 34%. Missouri approved its initiative 75.9% to 24.1%. Montana passed both an initiative to raise the minimum wage and another to set some limits on state lobbyists by about 75%. Nevada passed its Question 6 by 69% to 31%. Ohio, under ongoing conditions of vote suppression and election tampering, passed its initiative by at least 60%.

The wage gains are, to put it nicely, modest. Three states raised the floor from the federal minimum of $5.15 per hour to $6.15 per hour; Arizona raised its minimum to $6.75, effective January 1; Colorado will rise to $6.85 and Missouri to $6.50. Support for these modest improvements came from simple on-the-nose recognition of the rising cost of living and the lowness of these minimums relative to other states, to say nothing of the egregious and unseemly contrast between wages at the bottom and executive compensation at the top.

But the election results are still politically significant as well as important financially to people working for, and living on, low wages.

The margins by which these initiatives passed speak for themselves. A three-to-one margin happens only with broad political affirmation across the spectrum. Colorado, for example, which overwhelmingly approved a minimum wage hike in the face of well-funded opposition by business groups, also passed a ban on gay marriage. Missouri passed its minimum wage raise by 75%, barely passed its much more highly touted stem cell research initiative, and rejected an increase in the tobacco tax. Nevada raised the minimum wage by an overwhelming margin but declined to legalize possession of an ounce of marijuana.

Limited, inadequate and overdue it may be, but on the bright side, the increase in the minimum wage is not just a “movement.”

Regrettably, the sense of nationhood demonstrated in these initiatives did not prevent highly organized and resourced opposition lobbying by some business groups. They spent at least $1.2 million unsuccessfully opposing the modest wage rise in Colorado, not including payments to lobbyists, in-house and external; donations to receptive political candidates; and funding for think tanks and associations established for such causes.

The same business groups, be it noted, overwhelmingly finance and support Republican candidates, a political fact of life that the Democratic Party needs to address more effectively – not just by jockeying for more in contributions from the same tainted and compromised sources. Wisely, Rep. Nancy Pelosi has already announced raising the federal minimum wage as one of her priorities.

Many evangelicals and other socially conservative GOP voters need an improved minimum wage themselves as individuals, just as the small donors subjected to the tender mercies of direct mail solicitation often need, and receive, help from social programs including welfare as well as Medicaid and Social Security. This is the real divide in the GOP electorate, euphemized as a “coalition” or a “rift between social conservatives and economic conservatives”: the party power structure diverts resources from its “base” even while it derives advantage from the fervor and consistency of rank-and-file members with whom it neither socializes nor identifies.

In a more enlarged spirit, a free and thriving nation must manage for the common good the natural resources and productive technology at its disposal. This requires encouraging participation in the life of the nation, to which individual economic survival is a necessary first step although an inadequate ultimate goal.