My co-workers provide direct services to our elderly, sick and physically challenged residents for the Pima County Department of Institutional Health.

Health care jobs are demanding, and people leave every day because of continual stress and low pay.

As a result, we are constantly training new employees. We’ve learned that high-quality health care means keeping good, experienced employees by paying them a decent wage and providing affordable health benefits.

I can’t imagine working for less than $11,000 a year, which is what a full-time minimum-wage worker earns.

It is appalling to watch the price of fuel, food, rent, electricity and child care go up year after year and see the minimum wage stay the same since 1997.

I don’t know how people survive on $5.15 an hour.

The typical low-wage worker is an adult woman who works full time, as a maid, housekeeper or laundry worker.

Then again, 10 percent of police, fire and ambulance dispatchers in Arizona earn less than $6.75 an hour.

More than 10 percent of Arizona’s child-care workers are paid less than $5.80 an hour.

It is these low-wage workers who take care of our children and our public safety. They deserve better. And I know Arizona can do better.

By voting for Proposition 202, we have a chance this year to raise the minimum wage to $6.75 an hour.

We can ensure that it keeps up with the cost of living, so working families don’t fall behind 9 out of every 10 years, as they have been.

Indeed, the value of the minimum wage is lower today than it has been in 50 years.

Today, 303,000 Arizonans will directly benefit from raising the minimum wage.

Seventy-eight percent of them are 20 or older; 57 percent are women; 60 percent work full time; 112,000 are married; and 97,000 are parents.

About 200,000 children live in families that will get a bigger paycheck when Prop. 202 passes.

That raise will mean real benefits for these children.

Children in poverty are three times more likely to have poor health, five times more likely to die from an infectious disease and one-third more likely to have asthma, according to the Children’s Action Alliance.

Poor children also have twice the risk of being held back in school. Voting for Proposition 202 will make a real difference for the kids in this state.

Those opposed to giving hard-working, low-wage employees a raise claim that the sky will fall if we increase the minimum wage.

That simply isn’t true. Ten other states and the District of Columbia have a minimum wage above $5.15 an hour, and their economies are doing very well.

That’s why a coalition of business owners, religious leaders, community organizations and senior groups support raising the Arizona minimum wage.

They know that statistics prove small businesses in D.C. and the 10 states with the highest minimum wage actually do better than small businesses in states like Arizona.

The number of small businesses in areas with higher minimum wages grew by 5.4 percent from 1998 to 2003, compared with only 4.2 percent growth in states such as Arizona, reports the Fiscal Policy Institute.

States with higher minimum wages also saw a bigger increase in the number of small-business employees than states such as Arizona.

When wages go up, turnover goes down and workers work harder.

The cost to businesses of increasing the minimum wage is totally offset by reduced turnover and increased productivity. That’s why so many small businesses have joined the effort to pass Proposition 202.

Raising the minimum wage is overdue. Indeed, it is nine years overdue.

Our child-care workers and police and fire dispatchers deserve better. Everyone deserves better than $5.15 an hour.

Arizona can do better. We can pass Proposition 202.

John Edwards works for the Pima County Department of Institutional Health and is a member of SEIU Arizona, the Service Employees International Union, a coalition of public service and health care employees.

———

About the author

My co-workers provide direct services to our elderly, sick and physically challenged residents for the Pima County Department of Institutional Health.

Health care jobs are demanding, and people leave every day because of continual stress and low pay.

As a result, we are constantly training new employees. We’ve learned that high-quality health care means keeping good, experienced employees by paying them a decent wage and providing affordable health benefits.

I can’t imagine working for less than $11,000 a year, which is what a full-time minimum-wage worker earns.

It is appalling to watch the price of fuel, food, rent, electricity and child care go up year after year and see the minimum wage stay the same since 1997.

I don’t know how people survive on $5.15 an hour.

The typical low-wage worker is an adult woman who works full time, as a maid, housekeeper or laundry worker.

Then again, 10 percent of police, fire and ambulance dispatchers in Arizona earn less than $6.75 an hour.

More than 10 percent of Arizona’s child-care workers are paid less than $5.80 an hour.

It is these low-wage workers who take care of our children and our public safety. They deserve better. And I know Arizona can do better.

By voting for Proposition 202, we have a chance this year to raise the minimum wage to $6.75 an hour.

We can ensure that it keeps up with the cost of living, so working families don’t fall behind 9 out of every 10 years, as they have been.

Indeed, the value of the minimum wage is lower today than it has been in 50 years.

Today, 303,000 Arizonans will directly benefit from raising the minimum wage.

Seventy-eight percent of them are 20 or older; 57 percent are women; 60 percent work full time; 112,000 are married; and 97,000 are parents.

About 200,000 children live in families that will get a bigger paycheck when Prop. 202 passes.

That raise will mean real benefits for these children.

Children in poverty are three times more likely to have poor health, five times more likely to die from an infectious disease and one-third more likely to have asthma, according to the Children’s Action Alliance.

Poor children also have twice the risk of being held back in school. Voting for Proposition 202 will make a real difference for the kids in this state.

Those opposed to giving hard-working, low-wage employees a raise claim that the sky will fall if we increase the minimum wage.

That simply isn’t true. Ten other states and the District of Columbia have a minimum wage above $5.15 an hour, and their economies are doing very well.

That’s why a coalition of business owners, religious leaders, community organizations and senior groups support raising the Arizona minimum wage.

They know that statistics prove small businesses in D.C. and the 10 states with the highest minimum wage actually do better than small businesses in states like Arizona.

The number of small businesses in areas with higher minimum wages grew by 5.4 percent from 1998 to 2003, compared with only 4.2 percent growth in states such as Arizona, reports the Fiscal Policy Institute.

States with higher minimum wages also saw a bigger increase in the number of small-business employees than states such as Arizona.

When wages go up, turnover goes down and workers work harder.

The cost to businesses of increasing the minimum wage is totally offset by reduced turnover and increased productivity. That’s why so many small businesses have joined the effort to pass Proposition 202.

Raising the minimum wage is overdue. Indeed, it is nine years overdue.

Our child-care workers and police and fire dispatchers deserve better. Everyone deserves better than $5.15 an hour.

Arizona can do better. We can pass Proposition 202.

John Edwards works for the Pima County Department of Institutional Health and is a member of SEIU Arizona, the Service Employees International Union, a coalition of public service and health care employees.

———

About the author

My co-workers provide direct services to our elderly, sick and physically challenged residents for the Pima County Department of Institutional Health.

Health care jobs are demanding, and people leave every day because of continual stress and low pay.

As a result, we are constantly training new employees. We’ve learned that high-quality health care means keeping good, experienced employees by paying them a decent wage and providing affordable health benefits.

I can’t imagine working for less than $11,000 a year, which is what a full-time minimum-wage worker earns.

It is appalling to watch the price of fuel, food, rent, electricity and child care go up year after year and see the minimum wage stay the same since 1997.

I don’t know how people survive on $5.15 an hour.

The typical low-wage worker is an adult woman who works full time, as a maid, housekeeper or laundry worker.

Then again, 10 percent of police, fire and ambulance dispatchers in Arizona earn less than $6.75 an hour.

More than 10 percent of Arizona’s child-care workers are paid less than $5.80 an hour.

It is these low-wage workers who take care of our children and our public safety. They deserve better. And I know Arizona can do better.

By voting for Proposition 202, we have a chance this year to raise the minimum wage to $6.75 an hour.

We can ensure that it keeps up with the cost of living, so working families don’t fall behind 9 out of every 10 years, as they have been.

Indeed, the value of the minimum wage is lower today than it has been in 50 years.

Today, 303,000 Arizonans will directly benefit from raising the minimum wage.

Seventy-eight percent of them are 20 or older; 57 percent are women; 60 percent work full time; 112,000 are married; and 97,000 are parents.

About 200,000 children live in families that will get a bigger paycheck when Prop. 202 passes.

That raise will mean real benefits for these children.

Children in poverty are three times more likely to have poor health, five times more likely to die from an infectious disease and one-third more likely to have asthma, according to the Children’s Action Alliance.

Poor children also have twice the risk of being held back in school. Voting for Proposition 202 will make a real difference for the kids in this state.

Those opposed to giving hard-working, low-wage employees a raise claim that the sky will fall if we increase the minimum wage.

That simply isn’t true. Ten other states and the District of Columbia have a minimum wage above $5.15 an hour, and their economies are doing very well.

That’s why a coalition of business owners, religious leaders, community organizations and senior groups support raising the Arizona minimum wage.

They know that statistics prove small businesses in D.C. and the 10 states with the highest minimum wage actually do better than small businesses in states like Arizona.

The number of small businesses in areas with higher minimum wages grew by 5.4 percent from 1998 to 2003, compared with only 4.2 percent growth in states such as Arizona, reports the Fiscal Policy Institute.

States with higher minimum wages also saw a bigger increase in the number of small-business employees than states such as Arizona.

When wages go up, turnover goes down and workers work harder.

The cost to businesses of increasing the minimum wage is totally offset by reduced turnover and increased productivity. That’s why so many small businesses have joined the effort to pass Proposition 202.

Raising the minimum wage is overdue. Indeed, it is nine years overdue.

Our child-care workers and police and fire dispatchers deserve better. Everyone deserves better than $5.15 an hour.

Arizona can do better. We can pass Proposition 202.

John Edwards works for the Pima County Department of Institutional Health and is a member of SEIU Arizona, the Service Employees International Union, a coalition of public service and health care employees.

———

About the author

Former state Rep. Greg Patterson summed it up best:

“There always seems to be an initiative that has apple pie in the title and rat poison in the language. This year, I think the award for stealth language goes to the minimum wage initiative.”

Arizona voters should make no mistake as to what Proposition 202 is.

It is a deception by unions using the Trojan horse of the minimum wage to give themselves total control over this state’s employment policies.

For public consumption, the initiative’s backers have packaged it as a straightforward increase in the state’s minimum wage and a linking of all future increases to the federal Consumer Price Index.

Something so simple, however, should not need 2,000 words to describe it, and this is where proponents give the game away.

The dirty little secrets behind this sumptuous- looking harlot include:

● Exempting state government from paying the state minimum wage.

● Creating a politically appointed commission to oversee minimum wage and employment practices in Arizona.

● Giving that commission full access to all business records, regardless of whether they relate to minimum wage, which would create privacy concerns.

● Granting full enforcement power to the commission to arrest, fine, monitor and inspect.

● Allowing unions and self-styled special-interest groups to file complaints on anyone’s behalf.

● Allowing illegal immigrants to file complaints against American citizens for money.

● Making the accused guilty until proven innocent, which runs counter to our American legal system.

● And allowing allegedly aggrieved workers a full two years to file a complaint.

The above is just a small sampling of the Pandora’s box containing Patterson’s metaphoric rat poison.

These last two provisions cannot be overstated for the potential they have in opening a whole new flock of opportunistic lawsuits for ambitious lawyers.

How easy this initiative makes it for them to not only sue, but also to settle.

Proposition 202 is a grand deception built on a collection of lies big and small, and Arizona voters should see it for what it truly is.

But this will prove difficult, because the minimum wage has enjoyed a public image opposite to its actual effect.

As the most recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows – and the overwhelming body of economic literature has always known – the minimum wage is actually an entry-level wage.

In short, the bureau’s “Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers 2003″ found:

● Only 2.9 percent of all hourly workers in the nation earn at or below the minimum wage.

● More than half of minimum-wage earners are under age 25.

In short, raising the minimum wage punishes young kids looking for their first jobs.

The minimum wage is therefore not a living wage or a family-sustaining wage.

But if the minimum wage can get away with being something it’s not, why not use it to get away with a ballot initiative that is not what it says it is?

And that is the insidious genius behind the unions’ very crass attempt to grab power that they could never have hoped to achieve any other way.

If the voters buy this lie, they will pay a heavy price for it.

Michelle Bolton and Michael Crowe are co-chairs of the No on 202 Campaign.

———

About the authors

Former state Rep. Greg Patterson summed it up best:

“There always seems to be an initiative that has apple pie in the title and rat poison in the language. This year, I think the award for stealth language goes to the minimum wage initiative.”

Arizona voters should make no mistake as to what Proposition 202 is.

It is a deception by unions using the Trojan horse of the minimum wage to give themselves total control over this state’s employment policies.

For public consumption, the initiative’s backers have packaged it as a straightforward increase in the state’s minimum wage and a linking of all future increases to the federal Consumer Price Index.

Something so simple, however, should not need 2,000 words to describe it, and this is where proponents give the game away.

The dirty little secrets behind this sumptuous- looking harlot include:

● Exempting state government from paying the state minimum wage.

● Creating a politically appointed commission to oversee minimum wage and employment practices in Arizona.

● Giving that commission full access to all business records, regardless of whether they relate to minimum wage, which would create privacy concerns.

● Granting full enforcement power to the commission to arrest, fine, monitor and inspect.

● Allowing unions and self-styled special-interest groups to file complaints on anyone’s behalf.

● Allowing illegal immigrants to file complaints against American citizens for money.

● Making the accused guilty until proven innocent, which runs counter to our American legal system.

● And allowing allegedly aggrieved workers a full two years to file a complaint.

The above is just a small sampling of the Pandora’s box containing Patterson’s metaphoric rat poison.

These last two provisions cannot be overstated for the potential they have in opening a whole new flock of opportunistic lawsuits for ambitious lawyers.

How easy this initiative makes it for them to not only sue, but also to settle.

Proposition 202 is a grand deception built on a collection of lies big and small, and Arizona voters should see it for what it truly is.

But this will prove difficult, because the minimum wage has enjoyed a public image opposite to its actual effect.

As the most recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows – and the overwhelming body of economic literature has always known – the minimum wage is actually an entry-level wage.

In short, the bureau’s “Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers 2003″ found:

● Only 2.9 percent of all hourly workers in the nation earn at or below the minimum wage.

● More than half of minimum-wage earners are under age 25.

In short, raising the minimum wage punishes young kids looking for their first jobs.

The minimum wage is therefore not a living wage or a family-sustaining wage.

But if the minimum wage can get away with being something it’s not, why not use it to get away with a ballot initiative that is not what it says it is?

And that is the insidious genius behind the unions’ very crass attempt to grab power that they could never have hoped to achieve any other way.

If the voters buy this lie, they will pay a heavy price for it.

Michelle Bolton and Michael Crowe are co-chairs of the No on 202 Campaign.

———

About the authors