The goal of building the middle class and shrinking the underclass is also
why I believe that you should raise the minimum wage.
It rewards work--two and a half million Americans, often women with
children, are working out there today for four-and-a-quarter an hour. In
terms of real buying power, by next year, that minimum wage will be at a
40-year low. That's not my idea of how the new economy ought to work.
Now I studied the arguments and the evidence for and against a minimum-wage
increase. I believe the weight of the evidence is that a modest increase
does not cost jobs and may even lure people back into the job market. But
the most important thing is you can't make a living on $ 4.25 an hour. Now
--especially if you have children, even with the working families tax cut
we passed last year.
In the past, the minimum wage has been a bipartisan issue and I think it
should be again. So I want to challenge you to have honest hearings on
this, to get together to find a way to make the minimum wage a living
wage.
Members of Congress have been here less than a month but by the end of the
week--28 days into the new year--every member of Congress will have
earned as much in congressional salary as a minimum-wage worker makes all
year long.
Everybody else here, including the President, has something else that too
many Americans do without and that's health care.