In what I can only describe as a very hard slap in the face to the American workforce, the United States Senate yesterday voted against two measures that would have increased our country’s Minimum Wage – which is currently at $5.15 per hour – or $206 per week. The first proposal, introduced by Senator Ted Kennedy, would have raised the minimum wage incrementally, in three 70-cent raises, to $7.25 an hour over the next 26 months. The second proposal, offered by Senator Rick Santorum, would have raised the minimum wage to $6.25 an hour, over the next 18 months, in two 55-cent increases. Kennedy’s proposal lost by a vote of 46-49, while Santorum’s measure failed 61-38. At this point, and going forward, the Senate as a whole sees the issue of increasing the minimum wage, “a dead issue.”

But while the Senate decided not to raise the minimum wage – which has not seen an increase since 1997 – they did decide, during those same eight years, to raise their own wages by $28,500 annually – giving each Senator an annual salary of $162,000.

Call me crazy – but I thought it was take from the rich and give to the poor.

The more I learn about the disbursement of wealth in this country, the more sickened I get. Here are a group of 100 Senators who make, in one year, what it would take each of the more than half a million workers earning the minimum wage a decade and a half to make. In 365 days, each Senator could pay the annual salary of 15 minimum wage workers with the money they make each year.

How is that, “Public Service?”

Granted, when I worked for City Government, my salary started at $45,000 a year in 1999 – and I was making $52,000 a year when I left City Service in 2004. But rather than do the same job and get undeserved increases, I worked in three different agencies and was promoted three times in five years. In fact, there were times when I did ask for a salary increase and was denied, which in my eyes was fair – because it wasn’t as if I was working for a millionaire who had all the money in the world, but claimed he couldn’t afford my monetary demands – I was getting paid with the tax dollars of the American workforce – and I understood why each job had a salary cap attached to it…

…unlike our 100 greedy senators.

With no plans in the foreseeable future to consider an increase to the Nation’s minimum wage, which has seen only twenty increases since its inception on October 24, 1938 – with the biggest increase being only a $.50 hike from $4.25 to $4.75 in 1996 – it seems as though our country is continuing its creation of a society that is either rich or poor – with no middle ground – and no middle class.

So much for America being, “The Land Of Opportunity.”