HELP: Raise the Minimum Wage!

March 13, 2014

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP), chaired by Senator Tom Harkin (author of the Fair Minimum Wage Act) and Senator Lamar Alexander, held a full committee hearing yesterday. “From Poverty to Opportunity: How a Fair Minimum Wage Will Help Working Families Succeed” highlighted the ways that raising the minimum wage will benefit U.S. workers and their families. 

Senator Harkin opened the proceedings by saying, “No one who works full-time should ever have to raise a family in poverty.” Topics included who will be affected by raising the minimum wage, details of the Congressional Budget Office report, questions about potential job loss, and what it is like to live on minimum wage.

The panels included Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez; Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office; Heather Boushey, executive director and chief economist of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth; Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK; and Alicia McCrary, fast-food worker from Northwood, Iowa.

You can download the hearing testimonies and watch a video of the proceedings at the HELP Committee website.