Issue:

One of the issues before Congress when it returns from its August recess is legislation to increase the federal minimum wage. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) has introduced a bill that would raise the minimum from the current $5.15 per hour to $6.65 over two years. He is pushing the Senate leadership to schedule a floor vote on his bill in September.

In the meantime, moderate Republicans in the Senate, led by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), are working on an alternative bill, the details of which have not yet been revealed. In all likelihood, this proposal will either spread the increase over a longer period of time or reduce the amount of the hourly increase proposed for a two-year period. It is certain that the Republican proposal will also include a package of tax cuts for small businesses.

Act Now:

Call your Representative and Senators and urge them to support an increase in the minimum wage of no less than $1.50 over two years.

While they are at home for the summer recess (through Labor Day), call or visit their home offices and write a letter to your local paper urging your Representative and Senators to support this increase in the minimum wage and to resist efforts to reduce the amount or lengthen the time over which it becomes effective.

Write and Call:

U.S. Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121

U.S. House of Representatives U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20515 Washington, DC 20510

Background:

Just under seven million workers would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage (5.8% of the workforce). The current minimum wage has been in effect since 1997. At $5.15 an hour for 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year, a minimum wage worker makes a total of $10,712, which is nearly $4,000 a year below the poverty level for a family of three.

There is a widely-believed myth that most minimum wage workers are teenagers who work part-time, are being supported by their parents, and only work in order to have money to buy luxuries. The truth could scarcely be more different. Fewer than one-third of the people employed at this level are teenagers, and the majority of those young people are from families with below average incomes. Nearly half of all minimum wage workers are employed full-time.

Increasing the minimum wage is not just a matter of individual income; it is a family issue. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, about 40% of minimum wage workers are the sole wage earners in their families. Among minimum wage workers, 68% are adults (20 and older). Of the adults, more than 60% are women. Ten percent of all minimum wage workers are single mothers with children to support, and more than twice as many married men and women with children would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage. A growing number of such low-wage workers are seniors who are not able to make ends meet on their meager pensions and have returned to work part-time. African American and Hispanic workers are disproportionately represented among those earning minimum wage.

The 1996 welfare law (The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act) reduced or eliminated the eligibility of many low-income workers, especially immigrants, for cash benefits and food stamps. The result has been that -- as those who formerly received welfare benefits lose them and move into low-wage jobs -- social service agencies and feeding programs all over the country are seeing increased need for the most basic kinds of assistance to families headed by minimum wage and other low-income workers. The current minimum wage simply does not provide enough income to support a family. Even the increase proposed by Sen. Kennedy would leave a family of three below the poverty line.

Reducing the increase or stretching out the period over which it is implemented would simply force people who are already struggling to survive to stay in that condition longer, while providing little or no benefit to the businesses that such efforts are designed to assist. In fact, many studies of previous increases in the minimum wage have shown that employers benefit from increased stability in the workforce when workers are more satisfied with their wages. These studies indicate that employers are able to absorb some of the costs of wage increases through higher productivity, lower recruiting and training costs, better attendance by workers, and improved morale.

General Assembly

Minimum Wage: Because wages gained from employment are the primary means by which most Americans satisfy personal and family needs, protecting the adequacy of even minimum wage jobs is a crucial moral issue. The General Assembly of 1988 urged the President and Congress "to raise the minimum wage to its historical level of 50 percent of the average nonsupervisory, nonagricultural wage and provide for regular increases that will keep the minimum wage at an adequate level to lift people out of poverty" (Minutes, 1988, p. 363).