Talk about a Raw Deal. If we don’t see a boost in the federal minimum wage by next year, it will be the longest the country’s ever gone without an increase. But after eight straight years of poverty-level minimums, more and more states have decided that enough is enough–or rather, that $5.15 is not enough.
In March, we highlighted minimum wage victories in Vermont and New Jersey, and since then, good news has rolled in from many more states. On May 3rd, Hawaii’s legislature voted in favor of increasing the state’s minimum to $7.75 by 2007. The next day, Connecticut’s State Senate approved a minimum wage hike that will reach $7.65 in the next two years. A week later, Minnesota’s legislature raised its floor-level minimum by a dollar per hour.
On June 1, Wisconsin became the twelfth state since January of 2004 to join the movement, establishing a raise that will gradually increase to $6.50 by next year. (Nonetheless, as the Madison Capital Times points out, Wisconsin’s victory is tarnished by a clause in the bill which prohibits towns and cities from independently hiking minimums.)
California’s House just pushed a minimum wage increase bill to the Senate, and legislation is on the move nationwide with activists from the Ballot Strategy Initiative Center hoping to get minimum wage initiatives on the ballots in nine more states by next year.
And according to a Pew Research Center poll, 86 percent of the public favors increasing the federal minimum which should suggest to the Dems that this can be a winning electoral issue. With an overwhelming consensus of Americans behind this fight, Senator Edward Kennedy is urging Congress to wake up. On May 18th, he introduced the Fair Minimum Wage Act, which calls for raising the minimum wage to $7.15 in three steps. (Click here to ask your reps to suuport the bill.)
One thing is for certain: even if Congress continues to leave millions of working Americans in the lurch, the movement in states shows no signs of slowing down.
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Co-written by Sam Graham-Felsen, a freelance journalist, documentary filmmaker and blogger (www.boldprint.net) living in Brooklyn.
