I'm usually pessimistic about the possibility of a more humane and just society, but there have been two hopeful developments in Massachusetts. They might not go anywhere, but these possibilities usually aren't even on the table.
1. Legislators are considering raising the Commonwealth's minimum wage from $8 to $11 by 2015. Given the high cost of living Massachusetts, such an increase would just about keep pace with the national minimum wage in lost cost areas like Alabama. Of course the usual business interests are protesting the proposal, but their threats are pretty empty, since retailers and other low-end service employers are far more likely to slightly raise prices than to close up their businesses in protest against an extra $3 per hour (by 2015, following a gradual increase). Such employers can't move their Wal-Marts and Market Baskets to Mississippi or Alabama any more than they could have moved them to Bangladesh or Laos. Ultimately, the main pressure will be for higher wages, not fewer jobs. This is one small piece of regaining the share of GDP that capital has taken from labor over the last 30 or so years in the U.S.
2. Gubernatorial candidate Don Berwick has announced a health care platform that includes a single-payer health insurance plan. In the wake of the Healthcare.gov failures, a plan to drastically simplify health insurance makes sense. More importantly, as Berwick points out, for governments and employers alike, health care costs in the U.S., including Massachusetts, are rising so quickly that they are a serious danger to economic vitality. An employer-based health insurance system, with some government programs for the poor, disabled, and elderly, is incredibly inefficient and fails to cut out the obvious and unnecessary middle-men: insurers.
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