Minimum wage is really minimal

Today, 200,000 hard-working Wisconsin residents (and probably a few slackers) got a raise.

The state's minimum wage went from $5.70 to $6.50 an hour -- enough to buy two gallons of gas. (Hope you don't need a quart of oil, too.) For minors, it's $5.90.

We should call it the minimal wage. That's really what it is.

But getting even that far was very difficult, thanks to the Republican leadership in the state legislature, who held it up for months and threatened to kill the raise altogether. In the end, they extracted a pound of flesh -- a pre-emption law that prevents local municipalities from setting a higher minimum wage that the state rate.

In the long run, that could be costly. Pressure from Madison, Milwaukee and other cities that had already raised the rate helped put lawmakers on the spot. Next time around, that local pressure won't be there. So $6.50 could be not just the minimum wage floor but the ceiling for a long time to come.

But Gov. Jim Doyle and the Democrats are the ones who got it done. Another Democratic difference.

Things could be worse. The federal minimum wage has been at a Third World $5.15 an hour level since Fido was a pup.

Madison Council President Austin King correctly says,

"The idea that you can get by on $6.50 an hour is a joke. We have to find other tools to help give people the ability to survive."

Then there are those who work for tips. The Wisconsin State Journal reports:

Hayley Spohn, a Downtown waitress and UW-Madison student, makes $2.33 an hour plus tips, which must pay for rent, food and college expenses. The tipped employee minimum wage did not increase.

Spohn said there are times where she can't eat for a day or relies on a friend for food because she runs out of money for groceries.

Is this a great system, or what?