Increasing Minimum Wage Makes Sense

June 23, 2006, Imagine working all day, doing your job well, and receiving your salary for eight hours of hard work. What do you get for your labor? One tank of gas.

I don’t know many people who would be pleased with that payment. But for 6.6 million Americans who work for minimum wage, that’s reality. With a minimum wage of $5.15 an hour, it takes a full day’s pay for a worker to pay for a single tank of gas.

The minimum wage has been the same since 1997, but a proposal in Congress would raise the wage gradually from $5.15 to $7.25 over two years. This kind of increase would give many working Tennesseans a much needed raise and would translate into thousands of dollars a year for many people who work hard but whose families still fall below the poverty level.

A minimum wage earner working full-time all year earns just $10,700.

When adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage is at its lowest level in 50 years. While the minimum wage has not increased in nine years, the cost for everyday items has increased dramatically. Since 1997, gas prices have more than doubled, health insurance costs are nearly twice as high, and college costs have increased by 77 percent.

Some opponents of a minimum wage increase would have you believe that teenagers working summer jobs would be the only ones to benefit from an increase. But the fact is more than 70 percent of the 6.6 million people earning minimum wage are adults over the age of 20, and 1.6 million of them are parents with children under the age of 18. An increase in the minimum wage would benefit 614,000 single parents.

Some opponents say raising the minimum wage would hurt job growth, but no evidence exists to support that claim. In fact, the years following the 1997 increase were some of our nation’s most prosperous times as those extra dollars were put back into the nation’s economy. And a study released this year by the Center for American Progress showed that between 1997 and 2003, employment in small businesses grew more in states with a minimum wage that was higher than the federal minimum wage.

During my time in Congress, I have consistently supported raising the minimum wage. Over the past several years, multiple bills providing for an increase in the minimum wage have been introduced, but House leadership has refused to bring up any of the legislation for a vote in the full House.

Recently, a minimum wage increase was approved by a House Committee, but the House leadership shamefully pulled the bill from the voting schedule in an effort to keep the measure from becoming law.

The House Majority Leader recently said he has served in government for 25 years but never voted for an increase in the minimum wage. If he had his way, today’s minimum wage would still be just $3.35.

I have signed a petition to force a debate and vote on an increase in the minimum wage. I will continue to urge my colleagues to do the same.

No American who works full-time all year should live in poverty. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happens all too often in this nation. It’s time for a change.