To the editor:

Food and fuel prices are soaring, eating into everyone’s income and hurting the poor above all – and business professor Mark Hirschey considers this an opportune moment to “take a stand” against raising the minimum wage? (Journal-World, April 1) The housing crisis is forcing thousands of full-time workers out of their homes, and Hirschey calls supporters of a minimum wage hike “foolish”? (Journal-World, May 7)

Luckily, that kind of nay-saying did not prevent Congress from passing legislation in 2007 to raise the federal minimum wage in three phases: from $5.15 to $5.85 (last July), to $6.55 (this July), and ultimately to $7.25 (in 2009).

The positive effects of this legislation will be keenly felt in Kansas, where 240,000 workers – more than one in six from a workforce of 1.4 million – will get raises as a result. That money will be spent instantly and locally. That’s why most states have minimum wage levels above the federal level – because they boost the economy, not the reverse.

Kansas has the lowest state minimum wage in the country: $2.65 an hour. That’s shameful. Raising that wage is the only way to bring thousands of full-time workers and their families above the federal poverty line.

David Smith,
Lawrence