Voters in Six States Approve Minimum Wage Increase

by James Parks, Nov 8, 2006

The pressure is on the next Congress to finally raise the minimum wage after voters yesterday overwhelmingly approved raising the minimum wage in all six states where it was on the ballot.

Voters in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Ohio approved measures that raise state minimum wage levels by $1 to $1.70 an hour and indexed to inflation. Add to that the pledge by U.S. House Democrats that if they won control of the lower chamber, they would make raising the federal minimum wage—which has been stuck at $5.15 an hour for a decade—a priority and the momentum is building strongly for an increase.

Republican leaders in Congress succeeded in preventing an increase in the nation’s minimum wage for years, but the AFL-CIO and working families plan to keep pushing for a new law in the next Congress. Ten years after Congress approved the last raise, the federal minimum buys less than it did in 1951, accounting for inflation—fewer groceries, far fewer gallons of gasoline, less medicine and less for rent.

During the past year, the AFL-CIO union movement’s America Needs a Raise campaign has led the drive to raise the minimum wage on the state level through legislation or the ballot initiatives and through congressional action on the federal level. Thanks to that mobilization, today more than 80 percent of Americans believe that it’s time to give workers a raise and back the drive to boost the minimum wage.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says:

All workers in all states need a raise. Once we got on the ballots in each state, it didn’t take much to convince voters that paying someone $5.15 an hour is just immoral.

Maude Hurd, president of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a key ally in the fight for a raise in the minimum wage, says:

We did the job Congress refused to do. Millions of families across the country will benefit, and it proves most Americans believe hard work deserves fair pay.

With the addition of the six states, 28 states and the District of Columbia have now passed legislation or approved ballot initiatives raising their state minimums above the federal minimum.

The AFL-CIO and ACORN sponsored  the video blog (vlog) “7 Days @Minimum Wage, which ran on  http://sevendaysatminimumwage.org/ until Election Day. Hosted by comedienne Roseanne Barr, the vlog features interviews with seven workers describing life at or near the federal minimum wage, which has not been raised since 1997.

The 7 Days vlog event was scheduled to end Oct. 30, but was extended until Election Day it after getting an overwhelming response.
 

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (0)