Attention to 100-year old statute makes it clear: we're failing our neediest

Scott Walker, other political leaders, demonstrate moral decline when it comes to minimum wage workers

Wisconsin Jobs Now, an organization dedicated to empowering workers in the state, has brought attention to a statute on the lawbooks, more than 100-years old, that requires employers to pay a livable wage. It’s their hope that in doing so, Wisconsin lawmakers will be coerced (or forced) to raise the minimum wage.

It’s really ridiculous -- not on the organization’s part, but rather the fact that it might take an obscure law like this to force action from the state.

The minimum wage as it stands today isn’t livable -- and that makes it morally reprehensible. Those lawmakers who stand in the way of raising it do so at the detriment of thousands of their own constituents, who work hard every day and struggle to make ends meet when the paycheck finally comes.

If ever a law could be needed to improve the lives of people, to improve our own moral standing, the minimum wage is it. We owe it to those who continue to struggle day-in and day-out to raise the wage, if only to say that we as a people are empathetic to their needs and concerns.

One candidate for governor, Democrat Mary Burke, supports raising the wage to a livable standard. Republican Gov. Scott Walker, on the other hand, calls it a “political stunt.” Don’t forget that when you go to the polls this November.