Georgia Minimum Wage Letter

Dear Friend,

Imagine working 40 hours a week, all year round, and making just $10,700 a year - or even less. Imagine trying to support a family with a wage of less than $900 a month to cover rent, food, health care, transportation, child care, and everything else. Of course, it is impossible, so you try to work two, maybe even three, jobs. And you worry all the time.

Because of the dire way in which the need for a living wage affects millions of households in Georgia and across the United States, we believe the struggle for a decent minimum wage falls squarely within the work of faith-based communities, especially the Unitarian Universalist community. It is part of our living tradition to seek an economically just society.

On this basis, the Unitarian Universalist Association and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee are calling on faith-based leaders and congregations to actively support the Georgia campaign to raise the
minimum wage and to join together as part of a statewide economic justice coalition.

While the U.S. Congress took action last year to raise the federal minimum wage (to $5.85 in 2007 and $7.25, to take effect in 2009), not every worker in Georgia benefits from these increases. For example, workers in Georgia's fishing industry are covered only by the state minimum wage. Similarly, under a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, many home health aides - those without medical training who sit with and care for the elderly and infirm - are not covered by the federal minimum wage. These workers, who are mainly women of color, can be paid less than $5.15 per hour, and often are.

A jump from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 would mean an extra $4,370 a year for a full-time worker. That could help pay for seven months of rent, or nearly a year of child care, or a year of tuition at a community
college!

We must work to:

• Bring the state minimum wage up to the federal rate to cover Georgia workers not covered by federal minimum wage law;
• Include agricultural, domestic workers, and tipped employees under state minimum wage law; and
• Index the state minimum wage to the cost of living.

We ask that you join with other faith-based leaders in supporting the efforts of the Georgia Minimum Wage Coalition. Please add your name to the enclosed letter by contacting Rev. Christopher Henry at chris.henry@students.ctsnet.edu or 678-427-3343.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. once declared, "There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American [worker] whether he is a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid or day laborer."

We hope you will join us!

Sincerely,
Charlie Clements
President, UUSC