Political Quotes

“Thank you, Representative Pocan, for leading us in this Special Order that really talks about so many Americans who are paid poverty wages, people who simply cannot afford to support themselves or their families on the kinds of wages that they are paid, and the role of the Progressive Caucus in helping them to highlight that. So, on August 29, I was proud at 7 in the morning to arrive at the Rock-n-Roll McDonald's in downtown Chicago. It's one of the most profitable McDonald's, certainly, in our area. I saw a growing crowd of people wearing T-shirts, saying, Strike for 15, and signs that said, We are worth more. In Illinois, the minimum wage is $8.25, so some of them were chanting, We can't survive on $8.25, and they were engaged in this 1-day strike, the demand being $15 an hour and the right to join a union, to form a union. $15 an hour to work at McDonald's? If you were to work at McDonald's for 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year--and of course the average employee there works about 24 hours a week--you would at minimum wage make the lavish salary of $31,000 a year, which starts heading you toward the middle class, but it's certainly not a huge salary. Compare that with the CEO of McDonald's, a man named Donald Thompson, whose pay package last year in 2012 was $13.7 million for the year.…”