Corporate Pay Raise An 'Insanity'

I commend The Spectrum's editor in chief for informing the university community of the proposed pay raise for top SUNY executives ("SUNY Seeks Pay Raises for Top Executives," Oct. 25). A proposed pay hike of this nature is typical of what is going on in corporate America today. The salaries of top executives are increasing enormously, while the low-income mothers and their children are starving. Am I the only one who is infuriated by this?

This proposal comes in a week when author Barbara Ehrenreich will speak at the Alumni Center. Ehrenreich is known for her book "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" in which she tried to make a living working minimum wage jobs. Part of her motivation was the newly instituted welfare reform which would push 4 million women the workforce to make $6 or $7 dollars an hour.

The plight of many of these women has not changed to this day and some have even become worse. Keep in mind that most of these women have one or more children to raise. This is approximately an income of $11,500 per year for a family to live on. From this, you can see why 50 percent of the children in America are living in poverty.

Barbara Ehrenreich is proposing that the minimum wage be increased to $14 per hour. Senator John Kerry is only proposing to increase the minimum wage to $7 per hour by 2007 and the cost of living will keep going up.

To top it all off, I was one of the handful of the students who attended the investiture of the President John Simpson. I heard so many things to the effect that those in academia have a responsibility to the less fortunate. Those speeches were all "pie in the sky" or wishful preaching in my mind after reading about the salary increases for SUNY's top executives. Like the Native Americans used to say, "you speak with forked tongue."

I would like to see leadership who wants to "stop the insanity" of corporate or other executive increases and start living by what they preach.