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September 2, 2007

Increasing the minimum wage: Giving a leg up to America’s workers

 
By Congressman Gene Green
 
Washington, DC - This Labor Day, I join 863,000 Texas workers and their families as they celebrate their new purchasing power. Ten years was too long to wait for this year’s minimum wage increase. By 2007, the value of the minimum wage was at a 50-year low. The cost of food, healthcare and education had increased until workers could barely afford them, and staying afloat financially took more and more effort.

 

Since 1997, basic necessities have become dramatically more expensive. Whole milk has increased in price by 24 percent, bread by 25 percent. The cost of a four-year college education has approximately doubled, and so has health insurance. Gasoline prices have risen about 149 percent. All this while, the minimum wage had stagnated.

 

Last July 24, approximately 5.3 million American workers earning minimum wage saw their first pay increase in a decade, thanks to the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. Today, the least a worker can earn in the United States is $5.85 an hour; next July 24 that will rise to $6.55 and in 2009 workers will finally make $7.25. And another 7.2 million workers, including 908,000 here in Texas, will benefit from the increase even though they already make more than the minimum.

 

Who are these people that will benefit from a higher minimum wage? They are our family members, friends and neighbors. Nationally, 59 percent of them are women; 3.4 million are parents. Ten percent of military spouses will get a raise, benefiting 50,000 families that support our troops. More than 60 percent are white, 18 percent are Hispanic, 16 percent are black and two percent are Asian. And, despite the stereotype that people making minimum wage are teenagers working fast food jobs, 79 percent of them are 20 years old or older, and more than half of them work full time.

 

Though the increase seems modest, for a full-time worker it means $4,400 more to spend on food, water and electricity, rent, child care or college tuition. 

 

 

What could families buy with the $4,400 a year pay raise?

 

þ     15 months of groceries

þ     Over two years of employer-provided health care

þ     19 months of utilities

þ     20 months of child care

þ     30 months of college tuition at a public, 2 year college

 

 

When you work hard and play by the rules, you should have a shot at achieving the American dream. And while no one is going to get rich earning the minimum wage, this increase puts millions of people in a better position to move ahead. Now it will be easier to go to college or pay for a spouse’s or child’s education, or to save up for a car or another sorely needed investment.

 

Giving a leg up to American workers by raising the minimum wage is an integral part of the new Congress’s plan to improve our economy. Our priorities include making college more affordable, reducing the cost of energy, creating new jobs in energy and technology fields, giving breaks to low- and middle-income taxpayers, expanding cost-effective children’s health care coverage, and creating a pay-as-you-go balanced budget.

 

Congress has made considerable progress on these goals just this year. Look for more in the coming months.

 

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