"If you do the math, it's pretty stark. If you worked 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, you would earn $13,624. Not a single day off. No sick days. No health care. No pension.

 "The official federal poverty rate for a family of three is $17,600. Meaning, at the new rate, under the official definition, you are still poor if you are a household of just three--not to mention if you have a bigger family--and you are willing to work every hour, every weekday, every single week--with no break.

 "Here are some things to ponder:

• Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage today is what it was in the 1950s--more than half a century ago.
• To really make ends meet at minimum wage pay, two people in a household have to work three full-time minimum wage jobs.

"My friend Joel Rogers,director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, made a stunning calculation not too long ago: Had wages tracked productivity as they have over the past 30 years, median family income in the U.S. would be about $20,000 higher today than it is.” Check this out: Taking into account productivity, the minimum wage should be $19.12 ”which would make it almost 50 percent above today's median wage (not to mention the pathetic $6.55). 

"That's right. The minimum wage should be more three times what it is today. At that level, you would make almost $40,000-a-year. Not an outstanding amount given all the other costs and the likelihood that you would not be in a job with health care and a pension (that's another issue). But, beginning to be in the realm of respectable.

"And here's the most amazing part: passing the minimum wage also cost taxpayers. To get the minimum wage hike through Congress, Democrats agreed to a whole set of tax breaks for business, worth about $8 billion over ten years. Sure, not a lot of money in the scheme of a trillion-dollar plus budget. But, since every reputable study shows that there is virtually no negative effect on business when the minimum wage goes up at the levels we are talking about (and, some studies actually show a positive effect on business in terms of keeping workers), the only reason to shower business with more taxpayer money is to keep the political campaign cash pipeline open.

"The top one percent of the income earners burp and make far more in that brief moment than any minimum wage worker. According to Citizens for Tax Justice:

In 2008 the best-off one percent will have an estimated average income of almost $1.5 million each. Just to get into this elite group requires an income greater than $462,000. If all of that came from wages, then for single people it would take an average wage of $224 an hour to make it into the top one percent, and $722 an hour to become an average member.

To underscore: $6.55 per hour versus $224 per hour.

"We should be happy for the people who will get another seventy cents an hour in their gross pay. But, we should keep in mind that, at the grand new sum of $6.55 an hour, the minimum wage is a disgrace and a sad commentary about the state of our social safety net, the economy and our political system."

Unfortunately, even though this is the 21st century, the United States has failed and has a long way to go before it can claim to be a country of economic justice for all.