Giving America's Lowest Paid Workers A Raise

GIVING AMERICA'S LOWEST PAID WORKERS A RAISE

WASHINGTON, D.C.–U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky today released the following statement in support of H.R. 2, to raise the minimum wage:

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2, the Fair Minimum Wage Act. Nearly 15 million Americans, almost 2/3 of them women, go to work every day caring for our children and frail old people, cleaning up our messes, serving us food in restaurants, and for their efforts receive $5.15 an hour, the Federal minimum wage. If they work 52 forty-hour weeks, their annual income adds up to $10,712 -- $4,367 under the poverty level for a family of three.

Other Americans -- the CEOs of the nation's top companies -- made on average $10,712 in the first two hours of the first workday of new year. According to a report by Americans United for Change, those CEOs make $5,279 an hour, $10,982,000 a year, or 1,025 times more than their minimum wage employees.

Those CEOs must really be special compared to the woman who changes their mothers' diapers or cleans their toilets. If she is a single mom with two children, she has to work 3 minimum wage jobs to provide for her family, according to Wider Opportunities for Women.

It didn't surprise me that A Newsweek poll found that 68% of Americans believed "increasing the minimum wage" should be one of the top priorities for the new Democratic Congress. And it's no wonder that women around the country and in my district are signing petitions, calling, sending emails calling on us to raise the minimum wage.

Leta of Chicago wrote that "We need to increase the minimum wage,... and Rebecca emailed to say that an increase "is shamefully overdue.... Jacqueline in Skokie asked me to "Please restore a government which truly responds to the needs of the people....

It's hard to imagine any member of Congress objecting. After all, it's been ten years, the longest span ever, since the minimum wage was raised. In that time, we members of Congress have received cost-of-living increases that have raised our salaries over $30,000.

Today is the day we stand up for our lowest paid workers. Today is the day we give 15 million Americans a raise. And when we pass this modest increase, we should think of it as a down-payment on our commitment to assure that every hardworking American receives a living wage.