Federal Minimum Wage Increase on Friday
The federal minimum wage is set to increase Friday to $7.25 per hour. The Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign said in a press release this week that the increase is good but not enough. Their campaign calls for a $10 minimum wage in 2010.
Over 600 faith leaders from 50 states have signed onto a letter the group plans to send to the 111th Congress later this fall. Here’s an excerpt:
Between September 1997 and July 2007, we experienced the longest period in history without a raise in the minimum wage. Adjusting for inflation, the scheduled raise to $7.25 in July 2009 will leave workers about where they were in 1997 and far behind 1968, when the minimum wage reached its peak value of about $10 in 2008 dollars.
It is immoral that the minimum wage is worth less now than it was the year Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis while fighting for living wages for sanitation workers. The eroded value of the minimum wage has reinforced growing inequality, which has given the richest 1 percent of Americans a greater share of our nation’s income than any year since 1928. This has undermined our communities, our economy and our democracy. Prophetic voices like Dr. King and others throughout the ages have called for justice for the underprivileged and poorest in society.
The Campaign is also putting its support behind HR 2570, “Working for Adequate Gains for Employment in Services (WAGES) Act,” that would increase tipped workers’ base pay to $3.75 immediately and later index the rate to 70 percent of the federal minimum wage.
Nearly 15 percent of waiters and waitresses live below the federal poverty line, thanks in part because the minimum base pay for tipped workers has held steady at $2.13 since 1991.