The following has been accepted for the platform:
- Abolition of the death penalty
- Expansion of Social Security
- Raise minimum wage to $15/hour and index it (referring to the current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour as a "starvation wage")
- Updated and modernized version of Glass-Steagall
- Two-state solution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict that guarantees Israel's security with recognized borders and provides the Palestinians with independence, sovereignty, and dignity.
Following has been rejected:
- Opposition to TPP
- Tax on carbon
- National moratorium on fracking
Link
Not everything that I would have wanted, but not an awful start.
$7.25 is a starvation wage? That may be true in some areas, but around here that would be a barely adequate wage for a full time job that a single person could live a spartan lifestyle on. I do payroll accounting in my current job, so I have some idea of what wage rates are like. Even in retail jobs around here, one can find jobs that pay better than the minimum wage. Anyone stuck at $7.25/hr year after year is probably being overpaid.
Not that I don't think the minimum wage shouldn't be increased, but $15/hr as a national minimum wage is sheer lunacy, and so is the idea that minimum wage should be a living wage as opposed to a spartan wage.
Most people working minimum wage jobs are not single and do not, in fact, have other options available. Therefore, they end up working multiple jobs and begging for governmental assistance to make ends meet (rent, food, clothing, etc). Not to mention if the worker has children, which adds in more food, insurance, school, daycare costs. God forbid someone gets sick. $15/hr is a bare minimum, and still falls short of what a "living" wage should be if factors like rising productivity were taken into account. For me, it's a moral and an economic issue. Considering the average CEO makes roughly $7k per hour while others beg for table scraps, we should be talking about a maximum wage cap.
Anyway, nobody should be surprised at the DNC platform's shortcomings (not that it means anything). In a party currently primarily based on settling for "realistic" goals, I'm shocked to find anything other than DEFEATING DONALD TRUMP!@!!!! on the platform.
