Press Releases

No Happy Anniversary for Minimum Wage Workers July 24: Value of minimum wage lower than 1956; Faith, community, business coalition calls for raise
Jul 23 2010

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.

The minimum wage sets the wage floor, affecting workers up the ladder. Today, four out of six occupations employing the largest number of workers nationwide -- including retail salespersons, cashiers and food preparation and serving workers -- have a median wage that is lower than the minimum wage of 1968, adjusted for inflation (...


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Minimum wage hike will help workers and economy - More needed say workers, business owners and faith leaders
Jul 22 2009

Minimum wage raises have been so little, so late that even with the increase to $7.25 on July 24, workers will still make less than the $7.93 minimum wage of 1956, adjusting for inflation. It would take $9.92 to match the buying power of the minimum wage of 1968. That's why the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign says the minimum wage raise on July 24 is good, but not good enough.

"It can get very difficult when you have to decide which bill to pay each month," says Anjail Hafeeza of New Jersey. "I'm constantly scrambling to keep from getting evicted or have...


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A Higher Minimum Wage - The Best Stimulus, Assert Workers, Business Owners, Organizers and Faith Leaders
Jul 15 2009

Marilynn Winn, Atlanta worker getting raise July 24When the federal minimum wage rises from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour on July 24, the national Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign will celebrate – and call for another increase to $10 in 2010.

Atlanta Worker Marilynn Winn
...

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Minimum wage rising; workers, advocates available for comment from Let Justice Roll
Jul 9 2009
As the July 24 increase in the federal minimum wage to $7.25 approaches, the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign can provide you with workers, advocates, businesspeople and other spokespeople in favor of raising the minimum wage:
  • Low-wage workers who will get a raise on July 24;
  • Business owners who favor raising the minimum wage;
  • Faith leaders who see poverty wages as a moral outrage, including Rev. Paul Sherry;
  • Leaders of current or successful past campaigns to raise the minimum wage in Tennessee, New York, Georgia, Arkansas, Kansas and elsewhere;
  • Minimum wage expert Holly Sklar, author of  "A Just Minimum Wage: Good...

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Victory for Raise the Wage Kansas
May 1 2009
"Let Justice Roll's state-level successes in 2006 convinced us that we could succeed in Kansas, too. And we hope that others, elsewhere, will draw similar conclusions from our success. It might seem, at first glance, that raising the Kansas minimum wage would have been unusually difficult in the current economic downturn. But actually, this may have helped us, since the needs of vulnerable and low-wage workers became clearer than ever. And raising the minimum wage is a form of economic stimulus." -- David Smith and Heidi Zeller, Kansas Action Network & Let Justice Roll.

Kansas will no longer have the nation's lowest state minimum wage...

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Growing Number of National Faith Leaders Say Lift Economy by Raising Minimum Wage
Jan 13 2009

Living Wage Events Link MLK Dream to Ending Poverty Wages

Washington, DC, The leaders of 15 denominations and national faith organizations are among the inaugural signers of Let Justice Roll’s letter in support of a $10 federal minimum wage in 2010. Four hundred faith leaders from all 50 states have endorsed $10 in 2010 and more are signing on every day.

Rev. Dr. Sharon E. Watkins, General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), signed the letter in support of $10 in 2010, saying, “National wage policies are moral documents that express the values of our country. A minimum wage closer to a living wage better...


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Wyandotte County Commissioners vote to raise the minimum wage!
Jul 24 2008
KCK becomes the first city in Kansas to raise the minimum wage above the state's lowest-in-the nation minimum wage of $2.65 an hour.

Today, the federal minimum wage rose to $6.55, nearly four dollars above the Kansas minimum wage of $2.65 an hour.  Fittingly, the Unified Government of Wyandotte County chose today as the occasion to raise the local minimum wage rate to the federal level. From today forward, workers in Kansas City, Kansas, will be guaranteed a minimum pay rate nearly two-and-a-half times as high as the state minimum wage.

This is a major success – and we owe this success to the vision of the Wyandotte County Commissioners....

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National Faith-Community Alliance Launches Campaign to End Poverty Wages
Jul 22 2008
Let Justice Roll Urges Faith Leaders to Endorse Call for $10 in 2010

Washington, DC,  - On Thursday, July 24, the federal minimum wage will increase from $5.85 to $6.55 an hour, providing a much-needed but inadequate boost to workers and our economy. The $6.55 minimum wage will still leave workers with less buying power than they had in 1997 at the start of the longest period in history without a raise. Even after the minimum wage rises to $7.25 in July 2009, it will be far below the minimum wage of 1968, which is worth $9.86 now....


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Minimum Wage 40% Less On 40th Anniversary Of Dr. King's Final Days In Memphis
Mar 2 2008

Faith Leaders Call for Living Wage at Interfaith Gathering, March 13th

Forty years after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Memphis to support striking sanitation workers making poverty wages, he would be shocked to see millions of Americans making poverty wages today. Faith leaders from around the country will gather in Memphis, TN, on March 13 to continue Dr. King's work for living wages for all workers with an event organized by the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign and the Mid-South Interfaith Network for Economic Justice.

Dr. King told striking sanitation workers in Memphis on March 18...


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Faith leaders call for living wage on 40th anniversary of Dr. King's work in Memphis
Feb 26 2008
Interfaith Gathering in Memphis, March 13th, with National and Local Speakers

MEMPHIS -- Forty years after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Memphis to support striking sanitation workers making poverty wages, faith leaders from around the country will gather to demand a living wage for all workers. The interfaith service will be held at 7:00 pm, Thursday, March 13, at the historic Centenary United Methodist Church, which organized support in 1968 for the Memphis sanitation workers. Centenary UMC's former pastor, Rev. James Lawson, who worked with Dr. King, has been invited to be the keynote speaker.

Co-convened by the Let Justice Roll...

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