Progressive Caucus Hour

Floor Speech

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Ms. LEE. Let me thank you, Congresswoman Watson Coleman, for yielding and for hosting this important Special Order on the need to provide all Americans a good-paying job and the right to form a union.

I want to thank you for your tremendous leadership each and every day, for making sure that we stay on point on all of these economic issues that mean so much to people who are working yet still live below the poverty line. So thank you again.

This afternoon, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which I am proud to serve as the whip of, welcomed experts and low-wage workers to the Hill for a forum.

Now, each of the workers told powerful stories, and I hope that these are stories that Members here on both sides of the House will listen to. They spoke of struggling to get by, despite working full time on paychecks that are just too small. I hope we will take their struggles to heart and join the Congressional Progressive Caucus in our efforts to ensure a good-paying job for all Americans.

Too many Americans are still struggling to find a job that pays more than the bare minimum. They don't want to just get by. They want to get ahead, and they want to live the American Dream. They deserve to live the American Dream.

They are looking for a job that pays an actual living wage, a job that will provide them with paychecks big enough to lift themselves out of poverty into the middle class, a job where they can take care of their families and make sure the bills are paid, and maybe save for retirement. These are American values that everyone wants to live by and to achieve.

A few decades ago, these jobs were accessible to most Americans. Yet, because of the Great Recession and wage stagnation, too many Americans are working harder and harder for paychecks that keep them trapped in poverty. In the world's richest and most powerful Nation, this really is a disgrace.

A report released just 2 days ago from the University of California at Berkeley, in my district, found that allowing companies to pay workers wages that keep them in poverty costs taxpayers $152 billion a year. That is outrageous.

Instead of doing the right thing and paying for a living wage, these corporations are reaping record corporate profits while leaving families to struggle and taxpayers on the hook.

Now, as a former small-businessowner myself, I can tell you that paying poverty wage is no way to run a business. Paying a living wage with benefits is good for business, and it is the right thing to do.

As we continue to build support for the Good Jobs Movement, I know that more and more businessowners will see the benefit of paying a living wage and will join our cause.

Everyone deserves a job that allows them to make a living and provides them with the right to form a union. It is the economically sensible thing to do. You can ask any college or high school student who has taken Economics 101.

When we empower workers to fight for themselves and provide them a big paycheck, our country becomes fairer and our economy grows. People who are working should not be living below the poverty line. So $15 an hour, that is the minimum that we should be paying our workers.

Certain parts of the country, $15 an hour just barely, barely helps them put food on the table. So we need to get to a living wage, and we need to talk about what that means in different parts of the country.

So I want to thank you, again, Congresswoman Watson Coleman, for your leadership, for bringing us together. We have got to stay focused on this because everyone deserves a path out of poverty into the middle class. Everyone in our country deserves to live the American Dream.

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