Tom Harkin: “I regret that previous Congresses have blocked any increase in the minimum wage. The Senate has rejected 11 attempts to…”

“I regret that previous Congresses have blocked any increase in the minimum wage. The Senate has rejected 11 attempts to raise the minimum wage since 1998--11 times. Scores of religious and antipoverty groups have called on Congress time and again to recognize the basic principle that Americans who work full time and play by the rules should not be consigned to poverty. In 1966, Martin Luther King, Jr., said: We know of no more crucial civil rights issue facing Congress today than the need to increase the Federal minimum wage and extend its coverage. . . . A living wage should be the right of all working Americans. I join with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and say it ought to be a right. According to the Congressional Research Service, the real value of the minimum wage today, if it had the same purchasing power as it did in 1968, the year Dr. King was so tragically assassinated, if the minimum wage had the same purchasing power today, the minimum wage would be $9.19 an hour. What are we talking about increasing it to? We are talking about increasing it to $7.25 an hour.”