Middle Class Arrogance About the Minimum Wage and Marriage

The poor, as well as gays, unworthy of marriage?

I thought I had heard every ridiculous argument against raising the minimum wage. Then, in my local paper, a letter to the editor suggested people who earn minimum wage just shouldn't get married, because the minimum wage was meant for individuals just starting out, not to support a family.

I presume he has never worked at minimum wage. As woman with a BA degree in the 1960s (who couldn't type), I found myself unable to earn above minimum wage. In one job, my boss told me that if I were man, I'd really have a future with the company.

Some people are handicapped by similar discrimination (perhaps not as blatant); some have other kind of barriers to earning high salaries. To say such people do not have a right to enjoy the blessings of marriage seems cold-hearted as well as counter-productive.

By the way, I got some help from the federal government in the form of a fellowship for graduate studies, earned my PhD, and have been paying taxes happily ever since, in part so others can get the boost they need to become productive, taxpaying citizens.

In the long run, many programs end up bringing in more tax dollars than they cost. Certainly dollars spent on education, child care, etc., will pay more dividends than the billions we are pouring down a rat hole in Iraq.