No Raise for Minimum Wage Workers
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 8/10/2005
Efforts to raise the national minimum wage, which has stagnated for eight years, were stalled yet again on July 12, when the House of Representatives refused to consider (223-191) an amendment to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour over the next two years.Decrying the vote, Rep. George Miller, D. Calif., a co-sponsor of the amendment, said, "Real wages are declining for the first time in a decade. Gas prices hit an all-time high this week. Healthcare and educational costs are soaring. And in the face of all this hard news for workers, what does Congress do? It refuses to raise the minimum wage.... When is Congress going to show American workers the respect they have earned?"
According to a report issued by Americans for Democratic Action, titled Income and Inequality: Millions Left Behind, "The value of minimum wage is at its second lowest level in the last 45 years."
The real value of the minimum wage is more than $3.50 below what it was in 1968, a fact sheet from the office of Sen. Ted Kennedy, D. Mass, states. To have the purchasing power today that it had in 1968, the minimum wage would have to be $8.70 an hour.
In May 2005, Kennedy and Miller introduced the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2005, which like the failed amendment, would have raised the minimum wage to $7.25 in three steps: to $5.85 two months after enactment; to $6.55 one year later; and to $7.25 one year after that.
A report from the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), Increasing the Minimum Wage: An Issue of Children's Well-Being, found that parents supporting two children and working full time at the current minimum wage end up with an annual salary $4,500 below the poverty line.
Richelle Friedman, senior program associate for CDF's Family Income & Jobs Division said in a statement, "Too many Americans are working full time and still cannot provide the basics for their families. No parent who works 40 hours a week should have to choose between paying the rent and putting food on the table."
Supporters of the increase point out that a raise from $5.15 to the proposed $7.25 would have meant an addition $364 every month for each minimum-wage-earning worker. Such an increase could help cover 90 percent of a three-person family's grocery bill every month, half of the monthly rent, or almost six months of health care coverage for two children, according to a CDF statement.
