As the Economy "Recovers"

50% of public school students in Tennessee (nearly a million) now qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. This chart shows you who qualifies. Those who contend that the poor are largely responsbile for their own struggles will not convince me that the parents of over nine hundred thousand kids are deadbeats. A single parent with two children could have a job that requires a college degree and still be eligible to sign up her or his kids for reduced-price lunches. And don't try to tell me that the income requirements have been set too high. Given the current costs of housing and transportation in many cities, these levels make sense.

We need a higher minimum wage, and more cities (including Nashville) need to adopt some form of a living wage. Critics say that requiring employers to pay more will cause employers to lay off workers. But even with the pitiful and inadequate minimum wage we have now, tens of thousands of jobs are being cut and replaced by lower-paying jobs. (In the meantime, of course, the rich have gotten richer.) Something needs to be done now to stop this disturbing trend.