Lateefah Simon: “I strongly support the minimum wage and I oppose the Bond amendment. Raising the minimum wage clearly is needed. I hear…”

“I strongly support the minimum wage and I oppose the Bond amendment. Raising the minimum wage clearly is needed. I hear the phrase "welfare reform" around here a great deal. But 95 percent of it is not welfare reform. This bill raising the minimum wage probably will do more for welfare reform than all the bills that are called "welfare reform" around here because you give people a chance to earn a little. You give them an option. Twenty-four percent of our children in this Nation live in poverty. No other Western industrialized nation has anything close to that. If you need a good argument for campaign finance reform, look at what is happening in the minimum wage. What if the people at the minimum wage were big contributors? Would we have this kind of a problem? The minimum wage would pass overwhelmingly. And this is a women's issue; 58 percent of the people who draw the minimum wage are women. We ought to be doing better than this.”