"But raising the minimum wage is an essential component of any effort to reduce poverty and income inequality."
"For more than 20 years, the minimum wage for tipped workers has been frozen at $2.13."
"A fair minimum wage ensures that someone who chooses to work... is not consigned to live in desperate poverty."
"These are the Americans who serve our meals, pour our drinks, staff our hotels, cut our hair, and wash our cars. They deserve better."
"We need a level playing field and that includes our tipped workers."
"We can make work a way out of poverty again by raising the minimum wage--one of our Nation's simplest and most effective means to lift working families out of poverty."
"Momentum is gathering in favor of a higher minimum wage, and it is coming from the grass roots."
"My legislation, the Minimum Wage Fairness Act, introduced along with Majority Leader Reid, will raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour in three annual steps."
"There's no reason to believe we can't and shouldn't do it in 2014."
"The sky did not fall because we guaranteed workers a minimum level of basic economic security."
"there was no adverse employment effect from wage differences."