I’m sure most people receiving email from companies, sooner or later receive one with a legal disclaimer or warning on the end of dire legal consequences if you use or even look at the email in the wrong way.  They go something like the following (names have been changed):

Attention: This e-mail message, including any attachment(s) (collectively the "e-mail"), has been sent by ACME Drinking Water and Porta-John Recycling Co. and may contain PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION.  If you are not the intended recipient, then please (i) do not read this e-mail, (ii) do not forward, print, copy or otherwise disseminate this e-mail, (iii) notify us of the error by a reply to this e-mail and (iv) delete this e-mail from your computer.  Thank you.

This has to be one of the most worthless legal statements ever written.  The first problem is that this statement  is almost always found at the end of the email, and is sure to be read only after reading the contents of the email (i).  Nearly anything I do to the email will break (ii), deleting it will copy it to the deleted folder (iv), replying (iii) will copy it to the sent folder, not to mention the multiple copies made since I check email from multiple computers and the copy that remains on the server and in the ISP’s backups.  And let us not forget the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, it requires that email be backed up in public companies.  I’m also not sure if one could legally be bound to such a statement without agreeing to it first or a method of opting out before breaching the statement is available (as is often done with software licenses).

Of course, none of the statement is valid unless ‘you are not the intended recipient’.  Of course, since the email came to my inbox, and is stamped at the top with my email address, the only logical conclusion is that it was intended for me.  Other than the address, I can’t possibly guess what the actual intent of the sender was.  Even if the email says ‘Dear Anne’ at the top (obviously not me), the sender may be forwarding a message they thought I may be interested in.  How could I guess the ‘intent’ was anything other than for me to receive the email?

Personally I find every email I receive with such a statement rather humorous and I’m really tempted to forward every one I receive to the media (after all, as the intended recipient I can use it as I see fit).  But if you do business with any company that uses such a statement thinking it gives them any security or expectation of privacy, I would be worried.

It has been a quite some time since I was directly affected by minimum wage. The last time I had a minimum wage job, or one based on minimum wage, was when I worked in the computer labs of the University of Toledo. It helped pay the room, board and tuition, but was far from enough to pay all of it. If I hadn’t saved nearly every penny from jobs I held since I was 14 years old mowing lawn and eventually working at a garden center, McDonalds then a local grocery store, I wouldn’t have been able to afford even the relatively cheap tuition at a state university. I don’t know how anyone could afford to pay even half what I did now that most things are more expensive and minimum wage isn’t much more than was in the early 90′s.

So there is no question that minimum wage is too little to make a living from in most areas of the country. And in some areas you would have a hard time finding a cardboard box to live in a minimum wages. And while everyone seems to aggree that it needs to be raised, no one can agree how, and business argue that they need employees at substandard wages (ensuring a high turnover rate and guarenteeing continuous training expenses and poor customer service). I can understand some worry about large jumps affecting their bottom line (increasing $5 to $7, a 40% increase), but does it really need to be so complex as a congressional action and large increases every 9 to 10 years. Don’t most non-minimum wage jobs get a raise every year, even if it’s only a cost of living increase?

Many contractors that work with the covernment (with the Ohio Department of Transportation for example) must pay prevaling rates. These prevailing rates are maintained by the state for dozens of different jobs, with varying rates by county that are updated frequently (montly I think). So why can’t minimum wage be maintained similarly? The mechanism is already in place. Just correct the minimum wage, adjust it regionally by state and county, then update it for the rate of inflation yearly thereafter (also kept the the US government montly) And the yearly increase may also need to reflect the cost of living in each county to keep pace with local development or deflation.

But that would be entirely too simple, and would probably be a permanent fix (something congress really hates). It would mean people would get a wage they could survive on where they lived, and possibly even live in the community they work in (impossible in many areas of the country). It doesn’t mean anyone is going to get rich (except perhaps the minimum wage poster venders who would now have an entire poster for minimum wages to cover all 88 counties of ohio), but it means people would earn enough to get by. It wouldn’t be enough to prosper, but just enough to put a roof over their head, put food on the table, clean clothes to wear and bus fare to get to work, just the bare minimum. Enough to make it worthwile getting up in the morning to go to work, the bare minimum. Isn’t that what minimum wage should be?