On the recordApril 30, 2014
I am proud to stand here today to support raising the minimum wage. No person in America should work full time and not earn enough to be above the poverty level. The poverty level in the United States in 2014 is about $23,000 for a family of four. Today, if someone works under the minimum wage for 40 hours a week they are still in poverty. No one should work 40 hours a week and be given a salary that does not lift them and their families out of poverty. That is absolutely wrong. Millions of people in our country have been trying to climb into the middle class. But no matter how hard they work, they are stuck in the same place. In America today, nearly half of those who grow up in families in the bottom fifth of income earners will stay there as adults. Tens of millions of Americans labor tirelessly for years to scale the economic ladder but they can never get off the ground. That is unacceptable, it is immoral, and that needs to change. Raising the minimum wage is a first step to fighting income inequality in our country. We must help restore the dignity and the value of work and help millions of families escape poverty by increasing the national minimum wage. Today, more than 46 million Americans are living in poverty. The average American household made less in 2012 than it did in 1989. That is wrong. It is plain wrong. Over these last 20 years, the top 1 percent of wage earners in America has seen their income skyrocket by 86 percent.…
