CONGRESS MUST RAISE NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE

For the past nine years the Republican majority has thwarted our efforts to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour.  It is appalling that the minimum wage remains frozen at $5.15 per hour as millions of Americans continue to sink into the abyss of poverty, and struggle with high gas prices and increasing health care costs.  I believe that a job should be a way out of poverty for American workers, but for those earning minimum wage it simply is not.

Today, a minimum wage earner working 40 hours per week, fifty-two weeks per year earns only $10,700 dollars per year --$3,400 below the poverty line for a family of three, and not even enough to maintain a family of two above the poverty level.  Since the value of the minimum wage has declined significantly over the past 9 years, many states and cities have enacted their own higher minimum wage rates.  It is time for the federal government to do the same.

Raising the minimum wage is not the panacea to ending poverty in America, but I believe that such an increase will provide the necessary adjustment in income levels for Americans that need it most.  A responsible government recognizes when its policies are not effective, and this vital protection for our most vulnerable citizens is simply not effective as it stands today.  We must raise the minimum wage, and we must raise it now. 

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