Two Guys on the Minimum Wage

by Tula Connell, Nov 3, 2006

Today, Joe and Jim are at the Transport Workers (TWU) union hall in Philadelphia, where they’re wondering how workers can survive on the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour—a wage the Republican-led Congress repeatedly refused to raise over the past 10 years, despite giving itself nine pay increases totaling more than $30,000 in that same time frame.

Says Jim:

Minimum wage in this country is $5.15 an hour. So you figure a guy all day long couldn’t fill his tank on what he makes all day….

Adds Joe:

Couldn’t fill his tank, couldn’t feed his family.

Worse, says Jim:

Then they look you straight in the face and say, “Why do you need a raise?”

The two guys have shared their thoughts with us all week on the economy, the nation’s crumbling health care system and excessive CEO pay—and pondered a question for which the answer is less than nothing: What has Bush done for working people?

As Jim says:

I’d like to see what it takes to heat the White House for one day. Let George live on $5.15 an hour and see what happens.

Stop back to see Joe and Jim take it to the street with a cardboard figure of the president, as they ask people what they’d say to George Bush if they had a chance.

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