At Springfield Labor Day Picnic, McCaskill Pledges to Keep Fighting for Missouri's Working Families
Press Release
Today, Claire McCaskill visited the Springfield Labor Day Picnic where she emphasized her commitment to Missouri's working families and her consistent record of fighting for a strong middle class. Claire's record stands in stark contrast to her opponent, Todd Akin, who has worked to abolish the minimum wage for nearly 110,000 Missouri workers while voting seven times to raise his own, taxpayer-funded salary.
"I'll always fight as hard as I know how for Missouri's working families because they deserve a Senator on their side, someone who understands how crucial a strong middle class is to our economy and our character as a nation," said McCaskill. "Todd Akin's priorities are backward and too far outside the mainstream--he would eliminate the minimum wage for Missouri's working families, but still believes taxpayers owe him more money and voted seven times to raise his own pay. I'm proud to represent a state like Missouri, where our families have never been afraid of hard work, but it's our job to ensure working families are paid fairly for the hard work they do."
In addition to Akin's opposition to a minimum wage for Missouri's working families, Akin has voted seven times to raise his own Congressional salary by nearly $40,000 over the course of 10 years.
In the Senate, Claire stood on the side of Missouri's working families and fighting to protect a strong minimum wage, while Akin has consistently opposed and denounced the minimum wage at both the federal and state level, despite the mainstream understanding from economists and analysts that such laws are critical for a healthy middle class and good for the economy.
As a state lawmaker, Akin voted against establishing a minimum wage in Missouri, and as U.S. congressman he opposed legislation to increase the federal minimum wage to its current level of $7.25 per hour. When asked during a 2012 Senate primary debate if he knew the federal minimum wage, Akin incorrectly guessed it to be around $6 or $7 before expressing his belief that it should be abolished altogether.
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