Hilda L. Solis: “Good morning, Mr. Speaker. Imagine if you had not received a pay increase since 1997. The price of goods and services…”

“Good morning, Mr. Speaker. Imagine if you had not received a pay increase since 1997. The price of goods and services you rely on like gasoline and prescription drugs have gone up dramatically over the last few years. But one thing that hasn't has been the minimum wage. It has almost been 10 years that we haven't raised the minimum wage, and the reality is that 7 million Americans will not receive a minimum-wage pay increase. And most of those individuals happen to be single head of households, women, with kids, children. Democrats want to take America in a different direction. We want to expand opportunities to millions of Americans that feel they have been left behind by the Bush economy that has favored the wealthiest few above the middle class. One of the ways we want to expand opportunity is by giving minimum-wage workers a pay raise for the first time in a decade. Last week, Democrats passed an amendment to the Labor-HHS appropriations bill that would raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour. Democrats were joined by several Republicans in passing this commonsense amendment. We need to have support to bring this up and vote on it. Let's give those 7 million people an increase in the minimum wage. ____________________”