Minimum wage deserves increase without estate tax entanglement.

Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINT By Tom Dodd For The Register-Guard

Often a person in the shade does not understand just how hot it is for the person working in the sun. That person may see the sweat but not realize the strain.

This seems an appropriate analogy for trying to understand Sen. Gordon Smith's comment in the debate over linking a long-delayed increase in the minimum wage with further tax relief for the wealthiest and most privileged Americans.

Smith said, `I have never understood the belief of some that you can love employees and hate employers, but that seems to be what's driving this.'

Apparently, the senator did not see any sense in simply raising the national minimum as a stand-alone piece of legislation.

Now, as many know, the federal minimum wage rate has not been raised in nine years. What that means is that, due to inflation, those who work at that wage level have, in these nine years, suffered a wage loss each and every year. Because of this, the federal minimum wage is the lowest it has ever been in comparison to the poverty level. This assessment comes from U.S. Census Bureau. As such, changing the minimum wage is long overdue and deserves to be done with no entangling items.

The legislation that was recently considered by the U.S. Senate to raise the wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over a three-year period was entirely entangled.

In addition to raising the minimum wage, the Senate bill was also set to permanently reduce the estate tax for multimillionaires and give them other tax breaks as well.

One conservative estimate is that this would give such individuals an additional $268 billion over the span of just 10 years.

Perhaps, being a multimillionaire himself, Smith simply cannot understand the predicament of the working class in general and the working poor in particular. Indeed, the great divide between the fortunate wealthy and the rest of the citizens of the United States continues to grow.

For instance, as long ago as 1998, the top 5 percent of the population owned 59 percent of all the wealth in the country. To put it another way, as Edward Wolff did, `... the top 5 percent had more wealth than the remaining 95 percent of the population, collectively.' This figure has only gotten increasingly lopsided in the eight years since.

The year 1998 is important, in that it was one year after the minimum wage was last increased. Already, this is the longest period in the history of the minimum wage that it has not been adjusted. In this period, as the old saying indicates, the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer.

As bad as this is, the harsh ways of our current economy have also corroded the incomes of the college-educated as well. From 2000 to 2004, the pay for workers who had a four-year college education fell by an inflation-adjusted 5.2 percent. This figure comes from the Bush administration's own economists.

Because of facts such as these, Sen. Smith's question would better be asked, `When will the wealthy realize that the vast number of their fellow American citizens are straining to make a living for themselves and their families and, for many, doing so at jobs whose pay has been reduced each year for nine straight years?'

The privileged rich need to call into question the goal of simply accumulating more wealth for themselves. Equally important, the overwhelming majority of Americans need to speak and work for a fairer distribution of the wealth that it largely creates.

This movement needs to include the cooperative efforts of grassroots organizations, political groups, churches, labor unions and individuals.

As this happens, there will dawn a sweet day of blessed sun and renewing shade for all to enjoy.

Tom Dodd is the pastor of United Lutheran Church in Eugene.