Raise The Minimum Wage: No Full Time Worker In America Should Be Living In Poverty
The Problem
Contrary to common misperception, minimum wage workers are not just teenagers or college students working part time jobs for extra money. In fact, 88% of minimum wage workers are over 20 years old, and 86% work 20 hours or more. One-third of all single parents in America earn the minimum wage, and 64% of all minimum wage workers are women. At the current level of $7.25/hour, a full-time, year-round job leaves a woman with two children thousands of dollars below the poverty line, holding them back from earning their way into the middle class.
The Solution
The American economy should be based on the fundamental principle of rewarding work. That is why we need the Fair Minimum Wage Act to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. At this level, full time minimum wage workers would be able to rise above the poverty line and put those additional wages right back into the local economy creating more new jobs. This legislation would help 33 million American workers including 17 million women.
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Opportunity Points
- Low wage workers work on average 39.1 hours a week and 16 percent are working two or more jobs
- Raising the minimum wage also closes the gender wage gap: of the 10 states with the highest wage gaps between men and women, eight use the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
- Raising women’s hourly wages by 10 percent would lift nearly 1.3 million people out of poverty, including more than half a million children.
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