Dodd, Lieberman Support Bill to Increase Minimum Wage: Senators co-sponsor legislation to raise minimum wage to $7.25 an hour

Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman (D-CT) today co-sponsored legislation introduced by Senator Edward M. Kennedy that would raise the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour - an increase that would benefit 7.8 million Americans and will mean an additional $4,300 per year for minimum wage earners to support their families.

"People who rely on the minimum wage are often having to work at multiple jobs -- and even then - some are falling farther and farther behind," said Dodd. "If we truly believe in the value of work in our country, and we should, a minimum wage must be a living wage not a ticket to poverty. I intend to continue to fight to ensure that these workers are compensated fairly for their labor."

"Among full-time, year-round workers poverty has doubled since the late 1970s to more than 2.6 million Americans," Lieberman said. "No one who works for a living should have to suffer in poverty. An unacceptably low minimum wage is a key part of the problem that we must not ignore. Working poor should be no more."

The bill would raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour in three steps: $5.85 60 days after enactment; $6.55 one year later; $7.25 one year after that. The last time Congress increased the minimum wage was in 1996.

The number of Americans in poverty has increased by 4.3 million since President Bush took office. Minimum wage employees working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, earn $10,700 a year, $5,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. 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 $3.50 below what it was in 1968. To have the purchasing power it had in 1968, the minimum wage would have to be $8.70 an hour today, not $5.15. Nearly seven and a half million workers will directly benefit from the minimum wage increase. More than eight million more will benefit indirectly.

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 11 million new jobs were added, at a pace of 232,000 per month. There were ten million new service industry jobs, including more than one and a half million retail jobs, of which nearly 600,000 were restaurant jobs.

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