Stevens wrong on wage

The Spokesman-Review quoted Greater Spokane Incorporated Chief Executive Officer Steve Stevens saying the minimum wage was “intended to get somebody in the workforce. It wasn’t intended to be what you live on for the rest of your life.” That statement is not accurate and reflects revisionist history by the business community.

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt championed minimum wage legislation in 1938, he said, “No business which depends for existence on paying less than a living wage to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”

To have a real debate on wages and social costs, perhaps we should audit Spokane County welfare recipients for their current and previous employers, so The Spokesman-Review can publish the names of those companies that do not pay a living wage; thereby having the taxpayers subsidize these business via increased welfare benefits to their workers.

As taxpayers, we should have the right to examine these employers’ balance sheets to see how much in earnings is being dispersed into stockholder equity or as dividends to ownership. Only then can we have an open debate from business on livable wages.

Kolby Hanson

Otis Orchards