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Holt: Working Families - Not Congress - Deserve A Pay Raise

Date: July 28, 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Unemployed and Low-Income


HOLT: WORKING FAMILES—NOT CONGRESS— DESERVE A PAY RAISE

Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) issued the following statement today regarding Republican efforts to offer a sham minimum wage increase bill:

"I propose that Congress not raise it's own salaries until it passes an increase in the minimum wage. For eight consecutive years, Congress has voted to increase its own pay by more than $31,000 over 1998 levels—almost three times the amount a minimum wage worker earns in a single year, before taxes. During that same period, the minimum wage stood still. Prices for food, energy, and other necessities went up. And just when you thought the House leadership couldn't possibly be more contemptuous of working Americans, they offer a new insult: a sham minimum wage increase proposal that would, according to some press reports, exempt whole classes of workers from receiving a modest pay raise. A Congress with a conscience would raise the minimum wage now, for real—with no caveats, carve-outs, or exemptions."

http://www.holt.house.gov/list/press/nj12_holt/072806.html

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