The New York Times reported recently that nearly one in four U.S. workers are employed by companies that have contracts with the federal government. Now the White House wants to make sure those employers obey the law by changing how companies can win lucrative government contracts.

By altering how it awards $500 billion in contracts each year, the government would disqualify more companies with labor, environmental or other violations and give an edge to companies that offer better levels of pay, health coverage, pensions and other benefits, the officials said.

The Economic Policy Institute estimates that nearly 20 percent of the 2 million federal contract workers in the U.S. earn less than the poverty threshold wage of $9.91 per hour. The White House's new policy would benefit companies that treat workers fairly and provide better pay, health coverage and pensions by allowing them to receive extra credit in a scoring system used to award contracts. "We have a president who is talking about bringing more people into the middle class," Mr. Stern said. "The government should expect contractors to obey the law, and at the same time contractors should not be building a poverty economy, but should be trying to build a high-road economy."

Predictably, Republicans and the U.S. Chamber have come out against these changes, which would even the playing field for companies who pay their employees wages that can support a family. "Injecting such an arbitrary variable could jeopardize the integrity of the federal competitive source selection process," wrote five Republican Senators (including Maine's Olympia Snowe of Maine and Oklahoma's Tom Coburn) in a letter to White House budget director Peter Orszag earlier this month. The Chamber, in typical fashion, is utterly beside themselves at the thought of our government looking out for the working people and the middle class. Says the Chamber: "The plan could mandate higher wages, health and retirement benefits and paid sick leave and reduce the ability of smaller companies to compete for contracts."

So...just because a business is small and doesn't pull in as much as profit as a bigger shop, that gives it the right to pay workers unlivable wages, provide inadequate health care coverage, no paid sick leave, and play no role in helping secure a comfortable and secure retirement? Let's review that wrong-headed line of thinking for a minute.

Right now, companies that don't provide a living wage and adequate benefits for their workers are taking unethical advantage of our system, and unfairly profiting off of all working Americans. Because the fact is, when people who work full-time are not paid enough to make ends meet, they are forced to rely on public assistance in the form of housing subsidies, medical assistance, food stamps, and welfare. And who pays for these programs? Taxpayers like you and me. So essentially, companies who don't provide adequate wages and necessities for their workers are imposing these costs onto other taxpayers--and there's nothing fair or right about that.