If one were to listen to the news, read a few statistics and talk to their local Republican, one might mistakenly think this country is going through a time of prosperity.

Not that it’s a ludicrous conclusion to come to. After all, economists have predicted a 10-year federal budget surplus for the first time in, well … a long time.

So, what is the government going to do with the budget surplus? Well, a Republican bill which President Clinton vetoed would have provided around $792 billion dollars in tax cuts.

I have to give props out to Billy for shooting this bill down. Polls and common sense both show that tax breaks are not as important to people as Medicare and Social Security, which is where Clinton proposes to spend the dough.

Opponents of Clinton’s spending plans have charged that a good portion the money will more than likely get tied up in federal red tape, which is probably likely as well.

But I for one say better that than a Republican tax break pandering to the interests of their big money contributors, like Mephistopheles for instance.

But I’m getting a little off track now. Like I said at the beginning, there are plenty of reasons that people mistake this as a time of prosperity.

One statistic that people often point to is unemployment. Unemployment in this country has reached a 25-year low, but looking to this as a sign that more Americans are an essential part of the work force is misleading. The new problem facing American workers is not unemployment, but underemployment.

Fewer people are collecting unemployment now than at any time since January of 1974. But in 1974 employment meant something very different than it does today.

The shift of the bulk of the workforce into the service sector has dramatically changed life for the American worker. The largest employer in the United States today is MANPOWER, a temp agency, that for some reason feels it needs to be written in all caps.

If that is not a sign that times are not good, I don’t know what is. If a temp agency is your nation’s largest employer, obviously there are jobs, just not very good ones.

To a large degree the increased demand for temp work is a result of corporate “downsizing,” “streamlining” and other bogus ways of saying “screwing our workers.”

Think about it: If you’re a large corporation with variable clerical needs, why not hire temps when you need them rather than a few more regular secretarial employees?

The problem is, it’s good for the corporation, and bad for the workers.

Employees of MANPOWER do more than just secretarial work, but no matter what you’re doing, good luck getting any kind of benefits as a temp.

Let me broaden that. Good luck getting any benefits at all in the majority of jobs in the service sector. Also, allow me to clarify what I mean by “benefits.”

I realize that Wendy’s provides benefits such as free uniforms, hairnets and discount meals — but I’m talking about little things like health insurance and retirement plans.

Unfortunately, those things are a pipe dream right now.

Instead, the only thing the government ever does to help those on the bottom of the workforce is to raise the minimum wage.

Democrats unveiled a plan earlier this week to raise the minimum wage to $6.44 over the next four years. It’s too early to know if the plan will meet with any resistance, but all I can say is it’s always a good idea to raise the minimum wage.

There is absolutely no excuse for the fact that even a family with two full-time working parents may still fall below the poverty line. And don’t think that their plight is only their concern.

As I said before, I agree with Clinton that money should be spent to insure the stability of Social Security and Medicare. But it’s equally or more important to raise the minimum wage.

People finding employment for minimum wage with no benefits will continue to put a huge strain on Social Security and Medicare. Crappy as these programs are, for the underemployed, there is nowhere else to turn.

So, we can continue to bail out these and other social bail-out programs while many scoff at the idea of paying the fry guy at McDonalds enough to live on.

Or, we can pay that same guy enough money that he has some reasonable chance of not needing to lean on the government his entire life.

Because this is certainly not a time of prosperity for all Americans. You may look down on the guy that hands you your fries, but he represents a larger portion of the American work force than you do.

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Ben Godar is a senior in sociology from Ames. He used to work at Wendy’s and hated wearing the hairnet.