March 18, 1997

A Gratuitous Political Comment

Sometimes you just have to be annoyed.

So, let me get this straight: I'm supposed to love Mayor Riordan (and help re-elect him) because he only takes a dollar a year as salary? I could go the easy route and say, "You get what you pay for," but instead I'm going to mention something that I heard on the radio today.

LA's City Council today passed "The Living Wage Ordinance," which calls for businesses that have contracts with the city to pay either $7.25 an hour with benefits or $8.25 a hour without benefits. Mayor Riordan, staunch advocate of business that he is (and independently wealthy businessman -- remember that dollar a year? -- is completely against the measure and tried to water it down.

What this ordinance does, by the way, is ask these companies to pay their employees somewhere between $15,000 and $17,000 a year to work forty hours a week (with two weeks paid vacation). Now, I'm no Communist, but...does anyone truly believe that $15,000 to $17,000 a year is a living wage? Especially in a major metropolis like Los Angeles?

And Riordan is wildly against this?

This is the kind of attitude that gives laissez-faire economics a bad name.

Unfortunately, Riordan's main (only?) opposition in the mayoral race is Tom Hayden. Shoot me now.