Congress Should Take the Lead in Raising the Minimum Wage

Allow Workers to Take Steps Toward Economic Security

For the last ten years, the states and cities, not Washington, have led the fight to raise the minimum wage. In last month’s midterm election, voters in all six states with state minimum-wage referenda on their ballots overwhelmingly supported increases. Now Illinois has legislation that would raise the minimum wage to $7.50 an hour with increases scheduled in succeeding years. Now 29 states have a higher state wage than the federal minimum wage of $5.15.

While states across the nation are enacting minimum-wage increases, Congress has refused to raise the minimum wage since 1997, allowing the purchasing power of the wage to drop to its lowest level since 1955. Laboring 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year at the federal minimum wage, a worker grosses $10,712 annually. Such a worker’s family is living below, substantially below, the poverty level, now $13,200 for a household of two, $16,600 for a household of three, and $20,000 for a household of four.

That may change. Sen. Edward Kennedy said this week that raising the minimum wage would be his top priority as the new chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that increasing the minimum wage would be addressed in the first 100 hours of the next Congress.

Yes, the incoming Congress should increase the minimum wage, and President Bush should sign the legislation. Doing so is long overdue. But raising the federal minimum wage is only a step on the ladder toward true economic opportunity and upward mobility for lower-wage households. While raising the minimum wage may not be a solution for ending poverty in the United States, it certainly is a step in the right direction.

But if we really want low-wage workers to advance toward economic security, a raise in the minimum wage should be accompanied by a reversal of the recent trend of cutting federal programs, such as skills training and access to college, that lead to higher and higher earnings for lower-wage workers. We also hope that Congress will adequately fund crucial federal programs, such as assistance on energy costs, health care, housing, child care, education, and nutrition, that help both low-wage and middle-class households live decent and productive lives.

A federally funded infrastructure for opportunity such as raising the minimum wage will help workers sustain their current efforts and take steps out of poverty.