Readers React: Don’t compare today’s liberals to the racist progressives of the past

To the editor: Thomas C. Leonard, a professor of economics and history at Princeton, teaches us a valuable history lesson with his op-ed article on the origin of the minimum wage and its association with racism and eugenics. Then he makes the mistake of drawing a comparison between progressives at the dawn of the 20th century and today’s progressives. (“Minimum wages were first designed to keep women and minorities out of jobs,” Opinion, April 5)

The progressives of today know a thing or two about economics and are more in alignment with industrialist Henry Ford, whose business strategy as an automaker early last century was to pay his factory workers enough money to buy the products they were making. Today’s progressives understand that workers are consumers, and without consumers the American economy is doomed. Today’s progressives are compassionate and are sick to death of seeing homeless camps along our sidewalks.

Today’s progressives know that our low-wage workers provide services we all need, and accordingly their value should be compensated with a living wage.

Bethia Sheean-Wallace, Fullerton

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To the editor: This is a thought on this subject I’ve not seen mentioned.

The concept of a “living wage,” or having a large increase in the minimum wage, implies that we now have a permanent subclass of working poor people in the United States. While that may have always been true, the concept of the American dream meant that everyone had a chance to work their way up in life.

Boosting the minimum wage to a $15 “living wage,” as is being done now in California, is an admission that the American dream is no longer valid. Rather than support the working poor with government programs, it is better to help them through the private sector.

Mike Feinman, Costa Mesa

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