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The new Congress is now in office, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
D-Calif., has pledged to raise the minimum wage in the first 100
hours. Following clear messages delivered by voters in November, the
House of Representatives has put the minimum wage hike at the top of
its agenda, and is scheduled to vote on the measure as one of its
first orders of business.
Now is the time to continue the momentum for progressive changes in
public policy. Voters sent a message loud and clear by
overwhelmingly approving ballot measures in six states to increase
the minimum wage. Nationwide, control of both houses of Congress
shifted from the Republicans to the Democrats.
Take Action Now!
Urge your members of Congress to support an increase in the federal
minimum wage. Remind your House member to fulfill the promise to
enact the bill in the first 100 hours, and insist that your senators
approve a “clean” increase without any politically motivated
amendments such as tax breaks for the wealthy.
Send an immediate message to your representative and senators
through our Legislative
Action Center.
Call the Capitol switchboard
directly at 202-224-3121 where you can ask to be connected to
your representative's office.
Message/Talking Points
Voters in the November 2006 election spelled out their priorities to
Congress and the White House. They want to see progressive policy
changes, including a long-overdue increase in the minimum wage.
Raising the minimum wage provides increased income to workers
earning the lowest legal income and helps them to sustain the basic
necessities of life.
Raising the federal minimum wage is the right thing to do
economically, as well as morally. Minimum wage jobs are local jobs.
They do not migrate to other regions as do those that compete in
national and international markets. Furthermore, minimum wage
workers will use any increase in earnings for purchases in the local
economy.
A total of 22 states now have minimum wage rates higher than the
federal level, and there have been none of the adverse effects that
critics had predicted.
The current federal minimum wage has not been raised by Congress
since September 1997. This means that inflation has further eroded
the wages of low-income workers.
Today, the federal minimum wage of $5.15 is at its lowest
inflation-adjusted value in over 50 years. A full time minimum wage
worker (40 hours a week) earns only $10,712 a year.
Background
A vote in the House on H.R. 2, a bill to raise the federal minimum
wage to $7.15 over two years, is scheduled for Wednesday, January
10. A vote on the Senate floor could happen in the following week.
The federal minimum wage currently stands at $5.15 and was enacted
in September 1997. In that same period of time Congress has voted
itself salary increases totaling $31,000 a year!
If the federal minimum wage is increased, approximately 760,000
single mothers and 1.8 million parents with children under 18 will
receive a small boost in their income. At least 80 percent of
minimum wage workers are adults over 20 years of age. A modest
increase in income for workers earning the minimum wage is just and
equitable.
Substantial research on the effects of raising the minimum wage
offers new evidence that there has been no substantial job losses
caused by modest increases in the past 15 years. According to a
statement signed by over 650 economists, including five Nobel Prize
winners in economics and six past presidents of the American
Economics Association, modest increases in state and federal minimum
wages can “significantly improve the lives of low-income workers and
their families, without the adverse effects that critics have
claimed.”
UUSC is a partner in the
Change America
Now (CAN) campaign to build momentum for progressive change, and
to encourage the new Congress to hit the ground running during the “first
100 hours.” We also are working with the
Let Justice Roll to change
the equation for working families.
For more insight and analysis on this issue, see “Why
Raise the Minimum Wage”?;“America’s
Workers Deserve a 'Clean' Minimum Wage Increase”;and “Do
the Math”.
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