Harkin Urges Increase In Minimum Wage
HARKIN URGES INCREASE IN MINIMUM WAGE
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 2006
Washington, D.C.Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) today called for passage of a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour. The amendment, which was offered to the Defense Authorization bill by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), would raise the minimum wage in three steps and would benefit more than eight million hardworking Americans and their families.
"President Bush's economic policies may be working for the millionaires on Wall Street, but they have a very different effect for working Americans on Main Street," Harkin said. "It is unacceptable that the minimum wage in America is far from a living wage. Too many hard working families are struggling to get by in their daily lives. We are long overdue for a fair increase."
The legislation calls for an increase in minimum wage to $5.85 an hour sixty days after enactment, $6.55 one year later, and $7.25 one year after that.
Since the last increase in the minimum wage in 1997, the value has eroded by more than 15 percent. Today, the real value of the minimum wage is more than $4.00 below what it was in 1968. To have the same purchasing power it had in 1968, the minimum wage would have to be $9.26 today, not $5.15.
In Iowa, 87,400 workers would be positively affected by an increase to $7.25 - that's 6.4 percent of Iowa's workforce. An increase in the minimum wage to $7.25 can make a dramatic difference. For a full-time, year-round worker, that would add $4,370 in income. This type of increase in earnings has real value to a family living in poverty. For a low-income family of three, that would be enough money to pay for a year and a half of heat and electricity, almost two years of child care, or full tuition for a community college degree.
History clearly shows that raising the minimum wage has not had any negative impact on jobs, employment, or inflation. In the four years after the last minimum wage increase passed, the economy experienced its strongest growth in over three decades. More than 12 million new jobs were added, at a pace of 248,000 per month. There were ten million new service industry jobs, including more than one and a half million retail jobs.
http://harkin.senate.gov/news.cfm?id=257508