Raise the Minimum Wage, Big Time!

Having just recently been in Europe, where the populace just seems healthier and happier than working people here in the U.S., I found this post from The Smirking Chimp to be quite interesting:

Danish fast-food workers get five weeks paid vacation, paid maternity and paternity leave and a pension plan. They also have to be paid overtime if they work after 6 pm and on Sundays.

And, believe it or not, the fast-food corporations operating in Denmark are going along with these better wages and benefits.

They've accepted the fact that, in Denmark, people have to come before profits.

Martin Drescher, the general manager of HMSHost Denmark, an airport restaurants operator, told The New York Times that, "We have to acknowledge it's more expensive to operate. But we can still make money out of it - and McDonald's does, too. Otherwise, it wouldn't be in Denmark."

He went on to say that, "We don't want there to be a big difference between the richest and poorest, because poor people would just get really poor. We don't want people living on the streets. If that happens, we consider that we as a society have failed."

Imagine that: a fast-food industry executive who cares about wealth inequality, and who doesn't want people struggling to survive and provide for their families.

Meanwhile, back here in the US, we have corporate executives in just about every industry who don't give a second thought to wealth inequality and the struggles that US workers are facing. As long as profits keep rolling in, that's all that matters.

The US needs to take a page out of the Danish playbook.

Time for some more leadership via Executive Order, methinks.