Sean Patrick Maloney: “there has been much rhetoric in this House about helping working families. Yet that rhetoric rings hollow when there is…”

“there has been much rhetoric in this House about helping working families. Yet that rhetoric rings hollow when there is vocal opposition to raising the minimum wage. Where I come from, if you work full time making only $4.25 an hour, you are living in poverty. The current minimum wage offers little incentive to go off welfare and find a job. Some say that increasing the minimum wage will cost jobs, but study after study shows that is just not true. The minimum wage is at its lowest real level in 40 years. But some in the majority seem out of touch with just how little the minimum wage buys. If I were to propose that Members of Congress make only $4.25 an hour, people would call that proposal ridiculous. It is ridiculous. Members of Congress cannot live on $4.25 an hour, and neither can anyone else. Have a heart, raise the minimum wage.”