Saturday, June 22, 2013

Raising the Minimum Wage & Cutting Poverty Rates


Raising the minimum wage to just $10.10 per hour would pull more than half of the nation's working poor out of poverty, according to a new study. 
The study, by the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a national organization focusing on racial equity in the restaurant industry, discovered that nearly 58 percent -- or roughly 6 million -- of the 10.4 million U.S. workers living below the federal poverty level in 2011 would be pulled out by such an increase. (Proposed legislation introduced to Congress earlier this year by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) called for just that.)
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A similar piece of legislation, introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) in March, additionally proposes tying the minimum wage to prices in the economy. As of today, the minimum wage is actually worth $2 less than it was in 1968, when adjusted for inflation, according to a June study by the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute.

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