Political Quotes

“I rise today to voice my disappointment over yesterday's vote to increase the Federal minimum wage. It is vitally important that working families receive a long- overdue pay increase, but once again the Senate failed to move forward on a crucial piece of legislation. At $7.25 per hour, today's Federal minimum wage fails to provide a living wage for many Americans. Working a standard 40-hour week, 52 weeks a year, with no time off and no sick days, the minimum wage pays just over $15,000 a year. In many parts of the country, including California, that salary is nowhere near enough for an individual to subsist, let alone a family. It is difficult to fathom how a single mother working a minimum wage job--or jobs--can survive. These are the Americans who would benefit from this bill. To get a better idea of what the standard 40-hour-a-week worker must earn to meet basic necessities, I had my staff look at the cost-of- living in various California cities. In San Francisco, a single adult with no children would need to earn over $12 an hour to meet basic necessities. In Los Angeles, they would need to make over $11 dollars an hour. The same goes for San Diego. That amount only increases for families. By one measure, a single mother with two children living in San Francisco would have to earn almost $30 an hour just to meet basic necessities. I would add that we aren't debating an exorbitant increase.…”