No Happy Anniversary for Minimum Wage Workers July 24: Value of minimum wage lower than 1956; Faith, community, business coalition calls for raise

July 24 is the anniversary of last year’s raise in the federal minimum wage and no new increases are scheduled. The minimum wage is so low today at $7.25 an hour, says the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign, that it’s lower than the minimum wage of 1956, which was $8.02 adjusted for inflation. 1956 is 54 years ago.

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Policy Points: Raise the Minimum Wage to $10.
Raising Minimum Wage in Hard Times.

Value Workers to Build Economy

Editorial 
Hammond Daily Star (La.), Jul 26 2010
The value of minimum wage today is lower than the value of minimum wage in 1956, according to the Let Justice Roll coalition of faith, community and business organizations.

The decline in worker buying power is one of the reasons this nation is in the worst economic crisis since the Depression, and it is a big reason we are having so much trouble rebuilding the economy. Businesses are not hiring because they don't have enough customers, and workers are not buying because they don't have the money.

Living wage laws don't hurt employers

Letter to the Editor
By Rion Dennis
Baltimore Sun, Jul 22 2010
The current bill making its way through the Baltimore City Council to require retailers with gross sales over $10 million to pay their employees a living wage is an important piece of legislation which was unnecessarily maligned by columnist Marta Mossburg ("Baltimore can't live with this 'living wage' bill," July 20).

Council Takes Up Living Wage

Editorial 
The Tennessean, Jun 15 2010
Critics of the size and reach of government lately may have left the impression that city, state and federal authorities are packing staffs and agencies with well-paid workers, draining the treasuries filled by hard-earned taxpayer dollars.

Restaurant workers are starved of benefits, report says

By Jane Black
Washington Post, Feb 11 2010
Despite the recession, the restaurant industry is thriving. Many of its workers, however, are not.

A new report from the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC), a nonprofit organization that advocates better wages and work conditions for restaurant workers, revealed that 90 percent of industry staff members are not offered health insurance or sick days, 67 percent go to work sick, and 38 percent are forced to work off the clock.

Scroogism Wrecking America

Op-ed by Holly Sklar
McClatchy Tribune News Service, Dec 24 2009
The Scrooges of Wall Street were surprised a year ago by visits from the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future.

The Ghost of Christmas Past took them back to 1973, when the poverty rate was the lowest on record. The Ghost showed them a middle-class family living the American Dream -- with decent wages and health care, a comfortable home, money to send the kids to college, and a pension to supplement Social Security.

"Bah!" said the Scrooges of Wall Street. "Humbug!"

Fair Wages Help Small Business

Op-ed by Kent Ross
Distributed by American Forum, Jul 23 2009
As a small business owner, I find that people expect me to grumble about the increase in the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour as of July 24. But I’m not grumbling. In fact, I think it should be raised further.

Minimum Wage Stuck in the 1950s

Op-ed by Holly Sklar
Distributed by McClatchy Tribune News Service, Jul 23 2009
Are you better off than you were 40 years ago? Not if you're a minimum wage worker.

It would take $9.92 today to match the buying power of the minimum wage at its peak in 1968, the year Martin Luther King died fighting for living wages for sanitation workers.

Raising the Minimum Wage in Hard Times

Summary

  • The federal minimum wage was enacted during the Great Depression to promote economic recovery.
  • The long-term fall in worker buying power is one reason we are in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
  • An America that doesn't work for working people is not an America that works.
  • Raising the minimum wage boosts consumer purchasing power and economic recovery.
  • Raising the minimum wage does not increase unemployment in good times or bad.
  • Raise the floor to lift the economy.

Holly Sklar
Jul 22 2009
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Raising Minimum Wage in Hard Times
Let Justice Roll

Raise the Minimum Wage to $10 in 2010

Summary

  • Recent minimum wage raises are too little, too late.
  • The minimum wage is a poverty wage instead of an anti-poverty wage.
  • The minimum wage sets the wage floor. A low minimum wage institutionalizes an increasingly low-wage workforce.
  • A low minimum wage reinforces a growing gap between haves and have-nots.
  • Workers are also consumers. The long-term fall in worker buying power is one reason we are in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
  • Raising the minimum wage lifts workers, business and the economy.
  • $10 in 2010 will break the cycle of too little, too late raises.
  • $10 in 2010 will make up ground lost in minimum wage buying power since 1968.

Holly Sklar
Jul 22 2009
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Raise the Minimum Wage to $10 in 2010
Let Justice Roll

States and Cities Minimum Wage Chart

A chart of all the states and cities with a minimum wage above the current federal minimum wage.
Jul 14 2009
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State and Cities with Minimum Wages Above Federal Level
Let Justice Roll
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With over 100 member organizations, the nonpartisan Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign is the leading faith, community, labor, business coalition committed to raising the minimum wage to a living wage at the state and federal level.