Cantwell Backs National Minimum Wage Increase to Bring Country Closer to Washington State Standard

Cantwell Backs National Minimum Wage Increase to Bring Country Closer to Washington State Standard

Wednesday, June 21,2006

WASHINGTON, DC - Wednesday, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) urged her colleagues to support an amendment introduced by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) to increase the national minimum wage to $7.25 per hour over the next 26 months.

"The current federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour is not enough to help working families," said Cantwell. "At this rate, you'd have to work for one full day to pay for a tank of gas. By simply doing the math, we know that a worker earning the national minimum wage would have an income below the federal poverty line, meaning that in America, you can work full-time and still be considered poor. Hard working families should not have to live in poverty."

Congress has not raised the minimum wage since 1997, making this year the longest Congress has ever gone without raising the national minimum wage. The proposed Kennedy amendment would increase the federal minimum wage to $7.25 per hour over the next 26 months. The real value of the current national minimum wage is 33 percent less than in 1968. If today's minimum wage had the same value as the minimum wage of 1968 it would be $7.74—$2.59 more than the current level. Just raising the minimum wage by $2.10 over two years, as the Kennedy amendment proposes, would raise the wages of over 7 million workers and provide minimum wage workers with $1,529 more a year.

Currently, Washington state has the highest minimum wage in the country at $7.63 per hour. Increasing the federal minimum wage to $7.25 would bring the rest of the country closer to Washington's minimum wage.

http://cantwell.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=257547&&days=30&