Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge my colleagues to vote for the Raise the Minimum Wage Act. In my district of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Milwaukeeans are stuck at the Federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour set over a decade ago. These workers struggle to support themselves and their families with their meager wages. However hard they try, at $7.25 an hour, they are working themselves into poverty, since $15,000 a year is below the Federal poverty level. What do these workers do? They are forced to juggle multiple jobs and contend with long and unpredictable hours. Meanwhile, congressional inaction on minimum wage workers' paychecks continues to erode this basic labor standard. This inaction has contributed to out-of-control economic inequality and the decline of the middle class. Hardworking Americans working at the minimum wage are, indeed, working below the poverty level. Not only are they working below the poverty level, but they are supplying cheap labor to wealthy corporations that have benefited from our tax policy. It also requires you, hardworking taxpayers, to subsidize those corporations. Why? Because these workers working 40 hours a week still qualify for public benefits like food stamps and Medicaid because those employers don't provide those benefits. I personally know the hardships of surviving on less than a living wage.…”