My first job in Albuquerque was at the famous Frontier Restaurant. It's located across from the campus of The University of New Mexico. Known for their buttery cinnamon rolls, green chili stew and four rooms available for dining, the 24-hour greasy spoon is a must stop for any Route 66 traveler. They employ more than one hundred people, and the owners have a good deal of pull in the city. As a freshman in college, I usually worked the swing shift (4 - 10 p.m.) and got paid minimum wage. Back then, minimum wage was $5.15 an hour.

Flash forward twelve years to the present where minimum wage is now a whopping $5.15 an hour. City councilor Martin Heinrich (the councilor in my district) introduced a bill to raise minimum wage in the city of Albuquerque from $5.15 to $7.15. Businesses with 10 or fewer employees would be exempt. It sounded reasonable to me and actually very proactive and progressive.

Back in my minimum wage Frontier days, I was just out for whatever money I could get. I paid rent, utilities, and lived with six guys in a three bedroom house. Everyone had their little corner, but I paid extra for my own room. I had the good life. We didn't think of it as living in poverty. We were just college students.

To think of making a living at $5.15 an hour these days is quite frightening. An eight hour day equates to $41.20 before taxes. A full day's work for forty bucks? What kind of a scam is that? It's not like minimum wage employment is the easiest work either. It usually involves digging a ditch, serving up greasy food, or cleaning the scum off stuff no one wants to touch. Waiting tables is even worse. $2.13 an hour plus tips. Slavery plus tips. Smile, dance, entertain and you get an extra five dollars.

I liked the fact that the city was doing something the federal government doesn't seem concerned with these days: the poor. I truly believe that a society is only as good as its poorest citizens. Most social problems have a 'bubble up from the bottom' effect. If the poor are comfortable, then there are less burglaries and vandalism. Crime goes down, violence goes down. When the poor are desperate, they revert to animalistic ways. They beat each other up, smash car windows for stereos, wave guns at everyone, and mental illness reigns.

An extra two dollars an hour won't bump up minimum wagers to a much bigger tax bracket, but an extra ten bucks a day is something. That's fifty bucks more a week for full timers and two hundred more dollars a month. I think everyone would like an extra two Benjamins a month. Even the rich can see the value of such a thing, right?

Wrrrrrrrrrooooooooooong! The Albuquerque city councilors voted 5-4 to defeat the minimum wage measure and went one step further to deny the local voters the right to choose for themselves on the issue in the October 4 election. Petitions are still circulating to fight the measure, and I signed my name a couple weeks ago. Four out of the five naysayers stated that they thought it was state or federal issue. Not local. Here's the sound bites:

"It's a federal issue, and I urge Congress to move forward in looking at it," says no-voter Tina Cummins.

"There are certain things this council should deal with, and there are certain things a council shouldn't. I don't know if this is a local issue," says uh-uh voter Brad Winter.

"I don't think this is a local issue. I think it's a federal issue. I would like to see Congress take it up," says nope voter Sally Mayer.

"I believe it's certainly a national issue. It's at least a state issue. Even if it's not a state issue, it's regional issue," says no-man Michael Cardigan.

"If we're talking about tax rebates or tax credits for businesses, I'd support it," says vote against Craig Loy.

There you have it. The majority of our local councilors pass off their duties to the U.S. Congress. How's that for a cop out for helping the poor? Wait for Congress to do something? Wow, that's about as lame an excuse as a local councilor could muster. They say it's not a city issue, even though Santa Fe (which is 60 miles north of us) passed a bill upping their local minimum wage to over nine dollars. They say it's a regional issue, and Albuquerque has a third of the entire state's population. Sounds like a region to me. Since the bill was about the poor, one guy just couldn't see beyond tax rebates. Very weird. It's only not a local issue if no one in town makes minimum wage. There are plenty who do.

Even the Frontier Restaurant began hiring people for $7.50 an hour many years ago. They realized they get more loyal employees if they paid them more. Go figure. Maybe more people would move to Albuquerque if the low wages were better than the nation's standard. Maybe crime would go down. Maybe, maybe, maybe. As for now, the poor stay just as poor, and our city councilors continue to collect much more than minimum wage.

Chris Jungle is not paid by the hour. He is an independent contractor who drives a Yellow Cab. He earns money one ride at a time.