Politics & Power Quote by Jon Corzine

Seven years is a long time to pretend the economy is standing still. Corzine’s line is built to make that stasis feel not merely negligent but quietly cruel: Congress didn’t have to vote to cut wages; it just had to do nothing. By framing inaction as an active decision, he turns an abstract policy lapse into a moral indictment, one that lands especially hard because it’s wrapped in the sober language of “inflation” and “purchasing power,” not class-war bombast.

The intent is strategic. Naming $5.15 pins the argument to a tangible indignity, a number that sounds less like a wage than a typo. Then Corzine introduces inflation as the invisible thief that legislators conveniently outsource blame to. The subtext is that lawmakers love symbolic “pro-worker” rhetoric when it’s cheap, but they’re perfectly comfortable letting the market erode living standards when the political cost of a vote feels risky. “Record low levels” isn’t just data; it’s a shame marker, suggesting that the country is regressing while congratulating itself on prosperity.

Context matters: this was the long freeze after the late-1990s increase, when productivity and corporate profits were rising while the wage floor stayed stuck. Corzine, a Democrat with Wall Street credentials, is also signaling credibility to moderates: he’s not attacking capitalism, he’s invoking basic arithmetic. The argument works because it exposes how inequality often advances in silence, through procedural neglect dressed up as prudence.