Political Quotes

“Mr. President, 75 years ago President Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act written, in part, by Senator Hugo Black of Alabama. He actually sat at this desk as he was writing the minimum wage law and some of the Fair Labor Standards Act legislation in the 1930s. This legislation ensured that American workers would receive a minimum wage and work reasonable hours. We know what that has done for families in this country. We also know that the minimum wage hasn't even been close to keeping up with the cost of living and with inflation. We also know a number of other facts about the minimum wage. The minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Many minimum wage workers are working and making $7.25, $8 or $9--less than what we want to raise the minimum wage to so all would get a raise. We know that many of those workers work in the fast food industry. The CEO of a fast food corporation makes about $8.7 million or $8 million a year, while his employees average something around $19,000 a year. I am not one of those who says they have to work a million hours to get to the $8 million a year. To put into perspective what has happened with wages, as wages for CEOs and top management have gone up, we have seen the productivity of workers go up. We know that wages for those workers have simply not kept up, not only for minimum-wage workers but for workers overall.…”