Congressional House Cleaning Was Key to Minimum Wage Hike

by Mike Hall, Jul 24, 2007

Sen. Edward Kennedy says wage hike gives new hope and opportunity for millions.

Several hundred low-wage workers, community and union activists and congressional allies staged a celebratory rally this afternoon as part of the events on Capitol Hill, marking the first day in 10 years that minimum wage workers will see a boost in their paychecks. (Click here and here for reports from earlier today on the wage battle and what key lawmakers have to say.)

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told the rally crowd:

This wasn’t just a union victory, it was a student victory, a civil rights victory, a church victory, a community victory, a victory for working families, a victory for poor families—it was a victory for America.

I also want to make it clear that this victory we’re celebrating today isn’t the end of something, it’s the beginning of something even bigger. We raised the minimum wage because we started cleaning out the Congress last Fall. We started getting rid of the greedy enemies of working families. We regained some control and next Fall—in 2008—we’re going to finish the job and take back full control of Congress and full control of our country.

Says Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.):

It has been a long time. We have heard those that say, “well, the increase in the minimum wage will cost jobs. It will bring hardship upon these people.” This is what they have said on every increase. This is the 11th increase in the minimum wage [since 1938] and they have gotten it wrong every time…raising the minimum wage will make an immediate and significant difference in the lives of millions of hard working Americans….

In a touch of irony, a lot of those hard-working Americans are residents of President Bush’s home state of Texas. Bush steadfastly opposed all Democratic efforts to raise the minimum wage, relenting only because the wage bill was attached to an Iraq war spending bill he sought. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D-Texas), who walked down this morning’s blogger alley, told me:

Texas is the number one state that will be more directly impacted than any other state. There are 860,000 people that make the minimum wage in Texas and nationwide it’s 13 million. There’s the misconception that it’s about getting kids more money, that’s not the case, it impacts millions of families, a lot of single parents, women especially. It’s a promise we should have kept a long time ago but we didn’t have the votes to make that happen.

What are the everyday benefits of a higher minimum wage? Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) outlined a few this morning:

It offers the ability for parents to buy more groceries, more nutritional foods for their children. Maybe it’s being able to get some sort of minimal health care or being able to buy that extra gallon of gas. It just offers an opportunity to live a little better and I don’t know why so many were so opposed….

I asked Jackson about the obstructionist tactics wage opponents used to keep a lid on the minimum wage and other working family issues:

You always look for the polite word but I really think it was a nightmare for the domestic agenda. The last years of leadership didn’t focus on the interests of the average to low-income Americans.

Times have changed.

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