Dear Editor:

The lack of an adequate minimum wage places a burden on our communities and perpetuates a broken welfare system.

When employers irresponsibly pay wages that make it impossible to support a family, pay the usual living expenses, send children to college, or save for retirement, it is the rest of us who have to pay. Because employers do not adequately pay wage earners, those wage earners have little recourse but to seek food stamps, subsidized housing and other welfare benefits. It is the employers, and not the taxpayer who should have to pay for some one's living.

For those who give an honest day's work deserve nothing less that an honest day's pay. This is only moral and right.

A wage earner who receives a fair wage for his labor will spend that money in the community instead of being a burden to his neighbors.

Fred Nehring
Boothbay