Raise the Minimum Wage

When he was campaigning in 2008, President Barack Obama promised to
raise the federal minimum wage, declaring "people who work full-time
should not live in poverty." Obama proposed raising it to $9.50 by 2011.
That would merely adjust the minimum wage for inflation and restore its
1968 purchasing power.

Despite the very modest increase he proposed, neither the White House
nor Congress has done anything to make it happen. In fact, at least
three prominent Republican Senate nominees advocated abolishing this
worker protection altogether as they fought tough races. It's a good
thing they all lost.

We need to raise the minimum wage, not eliminate it. Boosting the
minimum wage would help our lowest-paid workers as well as the entire
economy. According to the Economic Policy Institute, every dollar
increase in wages for a worker on the bottom rung of the pay scale
creates more than $3,500 in new spending after one year.

The minimum wage, established during the New Deal to provide a
"minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and general
well-being," is falling short. A person working full time at the $7.25
hourly minimum wage would earn $15,080 annually before taxes and
deductions.

Consider a working single mom with two children: the federal poverty
level for this family is $18,310. She could work full time and still
earn $3,000 less than poverty wages.

While raising the federal minimum wage would only be a small step in
helping low-income families (other income-boosting measures like the
Earned Income Tax Credit and dependent care tax credits are proven to be
more effective in fighting poverty), it's nevertheless an important
step for ensuring that workers in minimum and near-minimum wage jobs can
better bridge the gap between their meager income and expenses.

In addition to raising the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation,
the government must ensure that all workers get this fundamental labor
protection. In 2009, approximately 3.6 million people earned the minimum
wage or less. A stunning 2.6 million of those people legally earned less than the minimum wage because they're excluded from the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act.

Home health workers, who provide invaluable care to the elderly and
disabled--allowing them to live with dignity in their own homes--are
still excluded from minimum wage and overtime protections under the
so-called "companionship exemption."

Before the end of the year, the Department of Labor is slated to
finally include reform to the companionship exemption in its regulatory
agenda. Yet, home health workers are only one segment of the workforce
that's excluded in one way or another from meaningful labor protections
that all workers need and deserve.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal responded to the Great
Depression by establishing a safety net that could alleviate poverty and
help the economy recover. The minimum wage, an essential labor right,
is just as important now as it was then.

Some officials and newly elected lawmakers are now proposing
dangerous "recovery" strategies, such as cutting taxes for the rich and
slashing budgets for social services that will leave millions of
Americans behind. While it's reasonable to presume that it's risky to
boost wages during a recession, several economic studies indicate
otherwise. Increasing the minimum wage, and thereby increasing
purchasing power for the poorest Americans, actually helps the economy
recover.

Raising the minimum wage would be a step to restoring dignity for
millions of workers, enabling many ordinary working Americans to become
part of the economic recovery rather than its collateral damage.