A Bloomberg editorial points out that after adjusting for the cost of living, the purchasing power of the minimum wage is lower than it was in 1968. Conservatives insist that raising it loses jobs (it doesn't) or it raises the cost of goods.(It doesn't.) It not only doesn't do those things, it provides a small economic boost. But you know, for some reason, "job producers" intensely dislike the idea of sharing the wealth with the people who work for them:

Here’s an unhappy observation about the minimum wage: Congress last increased the rate in stages in 2006, topping it out at $7.25 an hour in 2009, or $15,080 a year.

That amount, when adjusted for inflation, is actually lower than what a minimum-wage worker earned in 1968 and is too meager to offer anyone the chance to climb out of poverty, let alone afford basic goods and services.

About 10 states are now considering raising the rate, and Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, is proposing to increase the federal rate in three increments to $9.80 an hour in 2014. Many of the initiatives under consideration would smartly tie the minimum wage to the cost of living, meaning that those workers’ wages would finally keep up with inflation.

The past recession was brutal on jobs, household wealth and economic growth. But wages were hit hard, too. Real average hourly earnings have fallen below the level of 2009. Although wages often lag job growth after a recession, the pace of income gains this time around is far slower than in previous recoveries.

It’s also becoming clear that many Americans are being forced to take lower-paying jobs and that a low-wage bias is creeping into the economy, as Bloomberg economist Joseph Brusuelas recently put it. In many cases, minimum-wage work is all that’s available, which may explain why such workers are older and better-educated than they were three decades ago. In 2010, nearly 44 percent of minimum-wage workers had either attended or graduated from college, up from 25.2 percent in 1979, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think tank.

I think home prices may fall by even more than 30%. We're hitting a period of deflation, which will drive wages (and employment) even lower and the value of houses may drop even more:

As painful as the decline has been, history suggests home values still may have a long way to drop and may take decades to return to the heights of 2½ years ago.

"We will never see these prices again in our lifetime, when you adjust for inflation," says Peter Schiff, president of investment firm Euro Pacific Capital of Darien, Conn. "These were lifetime peaks."

The boom in home prices — fueled by heavily leveraged loans built on low or even no down payments — made it easy to forget that housing values had been remarkably stable for a half-century after World War II, rising at roughly the same pace as income and inflation. Prices soared in most of the country — especially in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada and metro areas of Washington, D.C., and New York — during a brief period of easy lending, especially from 2002 to 2006. That era's over.

So far, home values nationally have tumbled an average of 19% from their peak. As bad as that is, prices would need to fall as least 17% more to reach their traditional relationship to household income, according to a USA TODAY analysis of home prices since 1950. In that scenario, a $300,000 house in 2006 could be worth about $200,000 when real estate prices hit bottom.

Face the Nation had both senators on today.

While Santorum uses the "Fram oil filter defense," Durbin makes some great points!

Durbin: I think the president dramtically overstated the problem. If we do nothing. absolutely nothing, it will make every payment that's been promised with the cost of living for 37, maybe 47 years, and then if we did nothing, we'd be in better shape that what President Bush has proposed...

Video

Durbin then hits the nail on the head with what Bush's Social Security reform is really all about.

Durbin: Many are pushing these dramtic changes,privatization, because frankly, they don't like Social Security. They want to see it come to an end, as we know it. I'm not one of those people.

full transcript here