Senate Labor Committee Chairman Phil Boots, R-Crawsfordsville, apparently has no idea what life is like for most Hoosiers.
In explaining why he blocked a bill early this year that would have raised Indiana's minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, he said: “Everybody is free to earn as much as they want or as little as they want.”
What?
If we all truly had that freedom, everyone in Indiana would be a billionaire. But the vast majority of Hoosiers — let's estimate 99.5 percent — don't have the advantages that Boots has enjoyed.
Boots has an expensive private school education from Milligan College in Tennessee and Wabash College in Crawfordsville. He owns and operates a business, Boots Brothers Oil Co., that was established by his family well before he reached adulthood. And he is involved in ownership of two newspapers, the Noblesville Times and The Paper of Montgomery County.
If Phil Boots wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth, it was certainly within reach.
This isn't to say that Boots hasn't worked hard and isn't deserving of what he's achieved. Maybe he has and maybe he is.
This isn't to say that the rich can't empathize with or understand the plight of the poor. Many have. Perhaps most famously, Franklin Roosevelt.
But when a statesman makes an ignorant statement like that uttered by Boots in regard to the minimum wage bill, it's clear that he has lost touch with the realities of life for his countrymen.
Indiana's minimum wage is the federal standard of $7.25. It's been stuck at that rate since 2009. Meanwhile, 23 percent of working Hoosier families can't earn enough to afford life's necessities and handle unexpected expenses like doctor bills, according to a study released in 2014 by the Indiana Association of United Ways. Add that to the 15 percent of Hoosiers living below the federal poverty line, and nearly 4 in 10 Indiana families are financially insecure.
A minimum wage earner working a full 40 hours a week would earn just $15,080 in a year. Nobody can stay out of poverty on such wages. Yet, nearly 110,000 Hoosier workers earn minimum wage or less.
Most other states have recognized that reality. Thirty states have adopted minimum wage standards above the federal guideline. Indiana desperately needs to, as well.
It's the right thing to do from a humanitarian standpoint, and it would also reduce the need for social services, thereby saving taxpayers millions of dollars.
Boots and other ultra-conservatives would argue that raising the minimum wage would cause Hoosier businesses to lay off workers or reduce their hours, or shut down altogether. That might be true of marginal businesses teetering on the verge of failure, but healthy businesses would thrive. Some would benefit from a stronger working class with more buying power.
Eleven states increased their minimum wages at the beginning of the year. Indiana failed to do so.
Here's a challenge to Mr. Boots and other tone-deaf state legislators: Spend a week with hard-working Hoosier families that just can't make ends meet. You'll see that they are not "free to earn as much as they want," and you'll find that they are deserving of a wage that enables them to live with self-sufficiency and dignity.