City Government

OP-ED: Support the Campaign to Raise Oakland’s Minimum Wage

Published

11 years ago

February 14, 2014

By Dan Siegel

I am announcing my support of the campaign organized by Local 1021 of the SEIU and a coalition of community organizations to increase Oakland’s minimum wage to $12.25/hr. and to provide paid sick leave to all workers in the City.

Increasing the minimum wage to $12.25 is an important step towards my goal of implementing a $15 minimum.

According to the Living Wage Calculator developed by MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, the living wage for a single adult in Oakland is now $11.51 per hour.

If that adult is responsible for the care of one child, the living wage necessary to support the wage earner and her family is $23.22.

Yet California’s minimum wage is now $8 –the federal minimum is $7.25, and even San Francisco’s minimum, which rises based upon increases in the cost of living, is $10.74.

The Economic Policy Institute says that if the federal minimum wage had kept up with increases in labor productivity since 1968, it would now be $18.28.

As more and more adults are forced into minimum wage jobs, one result is that millions of full-time employees qualify for food stamps, rental assistance, and other taxpayer funded welfare programs.

In other words, we all subsidize Wal-Mart, McDonalds, and other low wage employers that do not pay their workers enough to provide for their food, housing and medical care.

The average age of the minimum age earner in the U.S. is 35; most work full time; and over one-fourth are parents.

These facts explain the growing movement across the United States to address income inequality by raising the minimum wage to $15. I support the Fight for $15 movement, led by low wageworkers and unions across the country. This movement is now starting to be taken seriously by politicians, including the mayors of Seattle and San Francisco.

My campaign for mayor is based on the premise that we can create a safe and prosperous city only by insuring that all Oaklanders enjoy social and economic justice.

A society that condemns large numbers of its members to lives of poverty, unemployment, inequality and despair cannot long survive. Increasing the minimum wage is an important step towards creating a just society, towards creating a city in which all people have a stake in living together in peace and harmony.

Oakland civil rights attorney Dan Siegel is one of the candidates running to become mayor of Oakland.

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Oakland Post: Week of June 4 – 10, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 4-10, 2025

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1 day ago

June 7, 2025

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Remembering George Floyd

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing.

Published

7 days ago

June 2, 2025

Oakland Post

Mural showing the portrait of George Floyd in Mauerpark in Berlin. To the left of the portrait the lettering "I can't Breathe" was added, on the right side the three hashtags #GeorgeFloyd, #Icantbreathe and #Sayhisname. The mural was completed by Eme Street Art (facebook name) / Eme Free Thinker (signature) on 29 May 2020. (Wikimedia Commons)

By April Ryan
BlackPressUSA Newswire

“The president’s been very clear he has no intentions of pardoning Derek Chauvin, and it’s not a request that we’re looking at,” confirms a senior staffer at the Trump White House. That White House response results from public hope, including from a close Trump ally, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The timing of Greene’s hopes coincides with the Justice Department’s recent decision to end oversight of local police accused of abuse. It also falls on the fifth anniversary of the police-involved death of George Floyd on May 25th. The death sparked national and worldwide outrage and became a transitional moment politically and culturally, although the outcry for laws on police accountability failed.

The death forced then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to focus on deadly police force and accountability. His efforts while president to pass the George Floyd Justice in policing act failed. The death of George Floyd also put a spotlight on the Black community, forcing then-candidate Biden to choose a Black woman running mate. Kamala Harris ultimately became vice president of the United States alongside Joe Biden. Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecuted the cases against the officers involved in the death of Floyd. He remembers,” Trump was in office when George Floyd was killed, and I would blame Trump for creating a negative environment for police-community relations. Remember, it was him who said when the looting starts, the shooting starts, it was him who got rid of all the consent decrees that were in place by the Obama administration.”

In 2025, Police-involved civilian deaths are up by “about 100 to about 11 hundred,” according to Ellison. Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African-American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing. During those minutes on the ground, Floyd cried out for his late mother several times. Police subdued Floyd for an alleged counterfeit $20 bill.