QUOTE
Memo to Congress: The Working Poor Need a Raise
Fed up after watching the minimum wage stagnate at poverty level for nearly a decade, a growing number of states are introducing their own pay raises with cost-of-living adjustments. Congress should follow their lead.
By Peter Dreier, TomPaine.com. Posted November 30, 2006.
Americans are divided about many things, but on at least one issue they stand united: During the past decade, polls have consistently shown that Americans overwhelmingly want Congress to raise the minimum wage. According to a report earlier this year from the Pew Research Center, 83 percent of the American public -- including 72 percent of Republicans and 75 percent of those who earn over $75,000 a year -- favor boosting it to more than $7 an hour. But, since 1997, Congress has refused to act, leaving the minimum wage stuck at $5.15 an hour.
Frustrated by Congress' intransigence, a growing number of states have made an end run around Washington. Before Election Day, 22 states had enacted laws -- by passing ballot measures or by legislative action -- to raise their minimum wages above the federal level.
...
Nancy Pelosi, who will become Speaker of the House in January, has pledged to hike the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour as one of the Democrats' first acts after taking control of the House and Senate. This would give at least 6.6 million low-wage workers a direct pay increase; millions more will have their wages hiked because the floor has been raised.
But with the Democrats now in a stronger position in Congress, many union leaders and community groups want them to push not only to raise the federal minimum wage, but also to include a path-breaking cost of living adjustment, so that inflation doesn't continue to erode its purchasing power.
Complete at LINK
Fed up after watching the minimum wage stagnate at poverty level for nearly a decade, a growing number of states are introducing their own pay raises with cost-of-living adjustments. Congress should follow their lead.
By Peter Dreier, TomPaine.com. Posted November 30, 2006.
Americans are divided about many things, but on at least one issue they stand united: During the past decade, polls have consistently shown that Americans overwhelmingly want Congress to raise the minimum wage. According to a report earlier this year from the Pew Research Center, 83 percent of the American public -- including 72 percent of Republicans and 75 percent of those who earn over $75,000 a year -- favor boosting it to more than $7 an hour. But, since 1997, Congress has refused to act, leaving the minimum wage stuck at $5.15 an hour.
Frustrated by Congress' intransigence, a growing number of states have made an end run around Washington. Before Election Day, 22 states had enacted laws -- by passing ballot measures or by legislative action -- to raise their minimum wages above the federal level.
...
Nancy Pelosi, who will become Speaker of the House in January, has pledged to hike the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour as one of the Democrats' first acts after taking control of the House and Senate. This would give at least 6.6 million low-wage workers a direct pay increase; millions more will have their wages hiked because the floor has been raised.
But with the Democrats now in a stronger position in Congress, many union leaders and community groups want them to push not only to raise the federal minimum wage, but also to include a path-breaking cost of living adjustment, so that inflation doesn't continue to erode its purchasing power.
Complete at LINK