Alan Lowenthal: “I am concerned about working families, and I will be talking about the minimum wage. I just want to preface that it was…”

“I am concerned about working families, and I will be talking about the minimum wage. I just want to preface that it was an honor to listen to Congressman Rangel really talk about what is probably the most important issue before us in terms of how we as a deliberative body deal with issues of war and peace and where our Nation is going. I, too, hope that we have, as this goes on, a really thoughtful discussion as you have laid out for us tonight. And I hope that we follow up with what the President says later on tonight and that, when we reconvene, we do talk about this in a very, very thoughtful, thoughtful way. But I am also concerned about how working families and individuals are struggling to make a living on our current minimum wage of $7.25. That is why I think Congressman Pocan and my colleagues and I are discussing this issue. It is a key component of raising this minimum wage, of closing the opportunity gap and building an economy that works for our working families. We spend a lot of time in this body talking about building the economy. We spend time discussing tax breaks for large corporations. But really what we should be about is: How do we rebuild the middle class? How do we give people an opportunity to join the middle class? Raising the minimum wage is a critical component. By raising it from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour, we would lift 900,000 Americans out of poverty. Do we raise it into wealth? No. We just take the first step.…”