Sherrod Brown: “Absolutely. The real strength of our middle-class economy over the years, the opportunity through education, through…”

“Absolutely. The real strength of our middle-class economy over the years, the opportunity through education, through hard work that has built a very prosperous country, really has operated under the assumption that if you are more productive, you share in the wealth you create--whether you are a minimum wage worker, whether you are an engineer, whether you are a schoolteacher--whoever you are. You are adding to the wealth of your employer, the wealth of our country, making our country better off. Clearly, when you talk about a higher minimum wage, when the minimum wage has declined and wages have declined overall, these workers are creating wealth for their employer, but simply are not sharing in that wealth. That is why one of the best selling books out there now is a book called ``War Against The Middle Class.'' As Senator Kennedy has said, it is clear that as productivity has gone up, as workers are working harder than ever before, only a relatively small number of people are sharing in the wealth they create or sharing in the productivity gains that have always marked the success of our country and of our economy.”