[NOW Action List] Time to Raise the Minimum Wage!

Support NOW's Work |	May 3, 2006	| Tell a Friend

Action Needed Background All NOW Actions More about NOW's work on Economic Justice		It's Time to Raise the Minimum Wage! Let Congress hear from you -- Support raising the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour by 2008. The federal minimum wage has not been raised in almost 10 years. It is time to help struggling working families get a raise. Of the 7.3 million workers currently earning the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour, 61% are women and 72% are breadwinning adults, not teenagers in their first after-school job. There are identical bills in the Senate (S. 1062) and House (H.R. 2429) that would raise the federal minimum wage over the course of two years to $7.25 per hour. Each bill needs additional cosponsors, but even more importantly, the House bill needs a little help getting to the floor. We need 30 more House members, and you can help. Here's the story: a House Subcommittee has refused to even hold hearings on the bill, much less bring it up for a vote. In order allow the House to vote, Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.) has initiated a "discharge petition" (H. Res. 614), a legislative tactic to bring a bill to the House floor without committee action. However, "discharge petitions" require the signatures of 218 representatives in order to move forward. As of April 20 there were 188 signatures. So Rep. Barrow needs your help to get 30 more members to sign the petition to enable the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2005 (H.R. 2429) to reach the House floor for a vote before this Congress adjourns sometime this fall. Action Needed: 1) We're targeting specific representatives who ought to sign the discharge petition to bring the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2005 to the House floor. See if your representative is on our target list -- you'll need to know either your representative's name or your congressional district so get that info first -- and you can get the phone number or send a message directly from our list. You can copy and paste our sample message or use it as a script for making calls: As a constituent and a supporter of women's rights and economic justice, I urge you to sign Rep. John Barrow's (D-Ga.) discharge petition H. Res. 614) to allow the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2005 (H.R. 2429) to come directly to the House floor for a fair and open discussion and vote. Your support of this discharge petition is not necessarily an endorsement of increasing the minimum wage but simply says that the issue merits debate by the full House. I believe that a fair vote on this important bill is necessary to help millions earn enough to support their families. The federal minimum wage has not been raised in almost 10 years. It is time to help struggling working families get a raise. 61% of the 7.3 million workers currently earning the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour are women and 72% are breadwinning adults, not teenagers in their first after-school job. A full-time worker at minimum wage is paid $5,000 less than the 2005 federal poverty line. Raising the minimum wage is a matter of fairness for millions of workers whose wages fail to keep up with inflation. Please consider supporting the discharge petition. Millions of minimum wage earners struggling to support their families need your help! 2) Both the Senate (S.1062) and the House (H.R. 2429) versions of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2005 still need cosponsors. Take a moment to email your senators and representative and either ask them to cosponsor the bill or thank them for already signing on, our automated system will provide the appropriate sample message for you. Background: RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE IS A MATTER OF FAIRNESS. The number of people in poverty has increased by 4.3 million since 2001, the year that President Bush took office. Members of Congress have raised their own pay $31,000 over the past ten years, but have yet to raise the minimum wage a single cent over the same period. Nearly 36 million people live in poverty, including 13 million children. Among full-time, year-round workers, poverty has doubled since the late 1970s?from about 1.3 million workers then to more than 2.6 million workers today. An unacceptably low minimum wage is a key reason there are millions of working poor. MINIMUM WAGE EARNERS ARE NOT TEENAGERS IN AFTER-SCHOOL JOBS. Approximately 7.3 million workers currently are earning the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour. Adults are the majority, 72%, of these workers, 61% of minimum-wage workers are women. More than a third of those working at minimum wage care for children under the age of 18, with more than 700,000 of them single mothers. ACTION IS NEEDED NOW. The minimum wage is not indexed for inflation. Congress is responsible for adjusting the minimum wage to keep up with inflationary changes in value. As Congress fails to act, the minimum wage continues to lose purchasing power for its recipients. The inflation-adjusted worth of the current federal minimum wage was 26% lower in 2004 than its 1979 counterpart. If the minimum wage in 1979 were indexed for inflation, it would be $6.92 in 2004 dollars and we should want no less for our workers. It is a travesty that a full-time worker at minimum wage earns $10,712, more than $5,000 below the federal poverty line for a family of three. IT'S TIME FOR THE FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE TO CATCH UP. There are 17 states and an additional 39 cities or counties in other states where the minimum wage is higher than the federal level. It's time the federal minimum wage started to keep up with the times. Resources: Economic Policy Institute AFL-CIO: Living & Minimum Wage Become a Minimum Wage Increase Citizen Co-Sponsor
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