[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 36 (Thursday, February 25, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H710-H714]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       INCREASE THE MINIMUM WAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.


                             General Leave

  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and 
to include any extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from New Mexico?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, for years, the Congressional 
Progressive Caucus has fought to give working families the dignity they 
deserve for the work they perform for our communities and our economy. 
The increase of the minimum wage to $15 an hour is an important step to 
accomplish this goal.
  Our caucus is pleased that 14 years after Congress last increased the 
minimum wage, we are finally close to seeing an increase become law. 
The American Rescue Plan is intended to help those most impacted by the 
pandemic's financial hardships. The increase in the minimum wage will 
help those most vulnerable essential workers. It will put money into 
the economy and into our local businesses. It will help jump-start our 
recovery.
  This is also about the dignity of work. This is a bill that will 
grant people the dignity of work with a living wage. When we don't 
provide a living minimum wage to American workers, they have to work 
several jobs or rely on food stamps or other government subsidies to 
put a roof over their head or food on the table.
  Rather than subsidizing corporations who pay their workers poverty 
wage, let's invest in families. Our workers put value and love into the 
work they do day in and day out. But Congress hasn't raised the minimum 
wage in over a decade. It is set so low, it is unsustainable for 
anyone. It was unsustainable before the pandemic, and now it is 
impossible for anyone to survive off the minimum wage alone.
  If we don't raise the wage, we will be turning our backs on the 
essential workers, on the same workers who have been keeping our 
country running for the last year. We will be turning our backs on 
working families.
  Everybody--we hear it all the time--is thanking our essential 
workers. Thank you, essential workers. We recognize now that those who 
work in our grocery stores, who care for our elderly, who pick our 
foods, who keep our schools and hospitals clean are maintaining our 
country through this pandemic.
  So while we are thanking them, we are thanking them for putting their 
lives at stake every time they go to work. You know what? That thank 
you is hollow if we don't back it up with action. That thank you is 
meaningless unless we say we are willing to not only thank you, but to 
actually pay you a wage that will allow you to live and pay your rent 
and buy your food and take care of your children.
  Finally, we are going to put that thank you into action. We are going 
to do that tomorrow because tomorrow we are going to fulfill our 
commitment to workers and we are going to include the minimum wage in 
the American Rescue Plan.
  So let's not lose sight either of the fact that this minimum wage is 
about our values, but it is also about family values because this is a 
bill, the American Rescue Act, that includes the minimum wage, that 
values families.

                              {time}  1945

  And why? Because we have all heard the stories of those families, 
those parents--whether they are a single parent or two parents, or two 
parents and their kids--are working. We have all heard those stories, 
that the minimum wage we have now set at $7 in many places, that that 
is not enough to pay the rent.
  And so what do people need to do? They need to take a second job. 
They need to work longer hours. They need to do overtime.
  And what happens when you are working two jobs or overtime? Do you 
then have time to coach Little League, to coach your daughter's soccer 
team, to spend that extra time reading to your kids? The reality is you 
don't.

[[Page H711]]

  So if we value families, we will pay the parents enough so that they 
have enough time to spend with their families.
  Mr. Speaker, this is about taking families out of poverty. This is 
about taking children out of poverty. And this is about allowing them 
to come out of poverty through their employment.
  Now, there are criticisms out there that raising the wage will close 
businesses and that people will lose their jobs. I am here to tell you 
from experience that that won't happen. We have had many economists who 
have talked about the fact that that won't happen.
  But let me tell you, I have got experience. Because in 2002, Santa Fe 
increased the minimum wage. We called it back then--and that is why I 
will sometimes fall into saying, ``a living wage.'' We increased the 
minimum wage, and we did it because we wanted to help people. We wanted 
to take the first step to bring people out of poverty.
  So the living-wage effort that we did in Santa Fe was a broad 
coalition that included businesses, it included grassroots activists, 
it included governments, it also included the faith community and the 
Catholic Church.
  This faith community and the Catholic Church, they saw it as a 
Christian value, that people deserve to earn a living wage for their 
hard work. And the first 5 years after passage, not only were 
businesses not harmed, but the number of establishments, the number of 
small businesses in Santa Fe grew.
  From 2012 to 2017, both the number of small businesses and the number 
of people employed by small businesses in Santa Fe increased, all while 
seeing higher wages every single year. Because what we did in Santa Fe 
was, we said we need to make this decision now, and then do what we are 
doing in our bill, which is index it so that we don't have to have this 
fight all the time, and so that we don't set a minimum wage, which is 
then a poverty wage, if we don't act.
  So in Santa Fe, we did that. And it didn't kill job growth. It didn't 
harm businesses, but it did help families. It helped stimulate our 
economy. It made our communities stronger. It was so successful that 
the county then adopted a similar living wage. And it was so successful 
in the city and the county that the State of New Mexico raised the 
minimum wage as well.
  Here in the House, we will do what we did in Santa Fe and New Mexico. 
We will do our job to provide workers across the Nation with a wage 
that reflects the hard work that they do for us. We will thank them 
with our legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I am going to also urge the Senate to lead with the kind 
of empathy and compassion that our citizens and our constituents and 
our communities expect of us. And if you lead with empathy and 
compassion, you will also pass an American Rescue Plan that includes 
the minimum wage.
  Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be on the floor today with my Progressive 
Caucus colleagues this evening.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).
  Mr. LEVIN of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Leger 
Fernandez.
  Let me start by saying what an honor it is to serve with you, and I 
think this is our first action on the floor. I am really glad you are 
here, and I appreciate your leadership.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because too many workers across the 
country have not received a raise in far too long. They include the 
frontline and essential workers who have kept our economy going during 
the worst public health crisis in nearly a century. These workers 
deserve better pay. That is why we must raise the minimum wage, step-
by-step to $15 an hour by 2025, and we have to start doing it right 
now.
  The Federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour for over a 
decade. This is the longest stretch of time that we have not raised the 
minimum wage since it was first introduced in 1938.
  Mr. Speaker, $7.25 is far too low. That is not an adequate wage for 
anyone, regardless of age or occupation. It is a poverty wage which 
prevents workers from realizing the American Dream. By gradually 
raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, 27 million low-wage workers 
will get a raise--27 million people. We will lift nearly a million 
people out of poverty, including a lot of kids. And we will put an 
extra $333 billion in the pockets of poor and working-class Americans 
and their families over the next decade.
  This money will be a lifeline for the working men and women of this 
country. It will go towards food. It will go towards rent. It will go 
towards shoes, other basic necessities, and that will stimulate local 
economies from coast to coast.
  Some detractors say this policy will hurt the economy, and that it is 
too much too fast. But that is just plain wrong. This proposal raises 
the minimum wage responsibly over a period of 5 years. Its effective 
date is 3 months after the bill's enactment, giving employers adequate 
time to adjust even before the initial increase.
  Mr. Speaker, 20 States just raised their minimum wage, going into 
this year, 2021. And a total of 30 States--red and blue--now have 
minimum wages higher than the Federal minimum wage. That includes my 
home State of Michigan, which raised its minimum wage in 2018 and 
currently has a minimum wage of $9.65. So the first increase under this 
bill won't even raise wages in Michigan. It is very gradual.

  We have not seen the catastrophic predictions of job losses and 
higher prices on goods come to pass in States that have raised their 
minimum wage. Representative Leger Fernandez just talked about Santa Fe 
and her county and her State, but we have a lot of studies showing this 
to be true from coast to coast.
  Indeed, workers have got more pay to buy groceries, to pay for 
prescription drugs, to shop on their local Main Streets. It is time to 
make this happen for families in every part of the country.
  Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is a commonsense policy that 
every Member should support. It is the right thing to do morally and 
practically for the economy, and I am glad that President Biden 
included it as part of his American Rescue Plan.
  Now, let me talk about how the American people feel about this. If 
Congressional Republicans want to oppose this, they are really out of 
sync with many of their own voters.
  According to a recent poll from Data for Progress, 66 percent of 
voters support increasing the Federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. In 
addition, 57 percent of voters support using nonstandard Senate 
procedures, like the budget reconciliation, to pass this minimum wage 
increase.
  Mr. Speaker, 20 States just raised their minimum wage, as I said, in 
the last year, but let's focus on Florida.
  In November of 2020, Florida voted for Donald Trump--I am not 
positive of my data here. I think it was by 50.5 percent to 48 percent, 
I think President Trump won Florida. Well, guess what? A $15-an-hour 
minimum wage clocked Donald Trump. The same Republican voters and 
Democratic voters and Independent voters all across Florida who voted 
for Donald Trump by a slight margin, voted for a $15-an-hour State-wide 
minimum wage by 61 to 39 percent. It was overwhelming.
  In the midst of a pandemic that has killed 500,000 Americans and an 
economic crisis that has the worst food lines in unemployment since the 
Great Depression, corporations have been raking in billions while 
workers are earning poverty wages and they are forced to live off food 
stamps. That is why so many Americans support this.
  Now, what about the argument that $15 an hour is too high?
  By 2025, $15 an hour will be the equivalent of $13.62 in 2020 
dollars. So it won't even be as high as it appears now, but it will be 
the minimum amount that a single adult working full time will need to 
earn a living and to cover core basic living expenses.
  Now, check this out: Even in the area with the lowest cost of living 
in these United States, Beckley, West Virginia, in 2025, a two-parent, 
two-child household, in which both parents earn $15 an hour and pay 
taxes, will be $360 short each month to cover basic living expenses. 
The lowest-cost place in the country, $15 an hour in 2025 won't fully 
cover basic living expenses.
  Furthermore, if the minimum wage had kept pace with productivity, 
with the increased productivity we create by working, since 1968--so 
productivity gains from 1968 to today--if the minimum wage had 
increased at the same

[[Page H712]]

rate, it would be over $20 an hour today. And we are proposing just $15 
an hour.
  So, Representative Leger Fernandez, I am so grateful for you bringing 
me into this conversation. I feel like this is a question of basic 
decency, of basic dignity, of the value of work in this country. Every 
person who gets up and goes to work should be able to provide for their 
family. And every person, just as you said, should have one job, and 
that should be enough. One job should be enough. And by the way, that 
includes everybody.
  One of the great things about what we are doing is, we are getting 
rid of subminimum wages across the board. No subminimums for tip 
workers, who are overwhelmingly women and workers of color, no 
subminimum wages for workers with a disability.
  We have an opportunity here to bring so many people out of poverty, 
to give a raise to 27 million people. It is time to do this. We have 
got to pass it. The Senate has got to pass it. We have a President 
named Joseph R. Biden, who is ready to sign it. Let's go.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Congressman Levin, I think you raised exactly 
the points that we have been talking about.
  This minimum wage, it should be a floor. And it is something that 
everybody supports. Everybody supports it, whether you are a 
Republican, whether you are a Democrat, and it is time to get it done.
  Mr. LEVIN of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, let me just mention, the 
gentlewoman is so right that it is a floor. One of these arguments that 
we hear is, ``We don't want one-size-fits-all,'' right?
  Well, first of all, as a labor lawyer, the minimum wage has been one 
national wage the whole time since 1938. It is simply a floor of 
decency.
  And guess what? You already explained how in 2025, it is not very 
likely that the minimum wage in Santa Fe, New Mexico, will be $15 an 
hour. Because in Santa Fe and San Francisco and Los Angeles and New 
York and Denver--and whatever--places all around this country--the odds 
are overwhelming that they will have to raise their minimum wage beyond 
that.
  It is a floor of decency. Let's go. Don't you think? Let's go.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Congressman Levin, I love the way you describe 
this as a ``floor of decency.'' And it is our moral compass that tells 
us that we must vote for this and we must vote for families now. And so 
we have heard what is happening in your State.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. 
Adams), so she can explain why this is supported in her district and 
her State.

                              {time}  2000

  Ms. ADAMS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Leger Fernandez for 
yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to give voice to the millions of 
Americans who are calling on us to raise the wage.
  Our minimum wage workers, many of whom we have come to call essential 
workers, have a base pay of $15,080 a year. It doesn't take a Ph.D. to 
know that you can't survive on $7.25. Yet, we expect millions of our 
neighbors to do it, even during a pandemic and an economic crisis.
  From the North Carolina General Assembly to the U.S. House of 
Representatives, raising the wage has been part of my life's work. I 
know how a couple of dollars an hour can be the difference between 
prosperity and poverty. I know it because I have lived it. You see, my 
mom was a domestic worker. She cleaned other people's houses so I 
wouldn't have to, so I could focus on going to school and getting a 
good education. Day in and day out, I saw that no matter how hard she 
worked, her earnings were barely enough to get us by.
  Colleagues, this is not because she didn't work hard enough. It is 
because she didn't make enough.
  Now, decades later, that reality has only gotten starker and the need 
to address it more pressing. The minimum wage has been at $7.25 for 
over a decade, the longest stretch in U.S. history.
  Mr. Speaker, it is simply impossible to pay the rent and feed your 
family when you are only making $1,250 a month. That is not far off 
from the average monthly rent of an apartment in Charlotte, North 
Carolina.
  Make no mistake about it, $7.25 is a poverty wage. That is why it is 
time to raise the wage to $15 an hour.
  A $15 minimum wage would give 27 million low-wage workers a raise and 
lift nearly 1 million people out of poverty. In my district, in 
Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, it would mean giving a raise to 
80,000 working women. 146,000 workers in the 12th District would see an 
average pay increase of over $4,000 a year.
  In this moment of crisis, as we grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, a 
$15 minimum wage is more important than ever.
  It is also important to note that essential and frontline workers 
make up a majority of those who would benefit from this wage increase. 
I believe in essential wages for essential workers. That is why we 
can't pay an essential worker or any worker a poverty wage.
  We must take action to deliver on our Nation's promise of equal 
opportunity for all. In the strongest possible terms, I urge support 
for increasing the Federal minimum wage to $15. If it can't happen in 
tomorrow's package, I urge our committee and this body to take it up 
next week because America cannot wait.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Congresswoman Adams, that was such a forceful 
description of why it is so necessary for us to act, to act on this 
moral imperative, which we are facing in this moment.
  We have to remember this is a historic moment, so this is our time to 
take historic action. When we say thank you to those essential workers, 
we must express our gratitude in things like the minimum wage because 
without that, then they are just words.
  Ms. ADAMS. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman is exactly right. We have to 
do it, and we have to do it now.
  Essential workers need essential opportunities to get a decent wage 
so that they can take care of their families. Working hard is not 
enough if you don't make enough. Right now, folks who are making this 
$7.25 do not make enough to make ends meet.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Working hard enough is not enough if you can't 
make ends meet. Those are wonderful words.
  Ms. ADAMS. That is right.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague from 
Michigan (Ms. Tlaib).
  Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good colleague from New Mexico. It 
is truly an honor to be able to serve with her.
  Yesterday, she shared with me a young student in her district sent 
her a beautiful letter. It was her first letter from a young child in 
her district, and I lovingly called the child Teresa's truth-teller. I 
hope it starts a trend in her community.
  Mr. Speaker, to many of my colleagues here, I ask them all to please 
come and tour my district. I lovingly call them 13th District Strong 
because they never stop fighting for justice even when many here across 
the country are always being asked to wait: wait for this, wait for 
change, wait for us to be able to tackle poverty wages. Those that can 
afford it, they wait, but our folks can't afford it anymore.
  Raising the Federal minimum wage to $15 per hour has never been more 
urgent for my residents, and it is long overdue. You see, I represent 
the third poorest congressional district in the country. I want you to 
think about that for one moment.
  I have an elderly couple who has to melt snow in a bucket so that 
they have the ability to flush their toilet because they can't afford 
water. Water has been increased by 400 percent in rates. I have a 
mother in my district who is pleading for me to find a place where her 
daughter can eat twice a day. More than half of my residents pay a 
third or more of their income for housing.
  Our economy is structured in a way to benefit the few over the many. 
It is no surprise that the many it is not working for are the working 
people in our communities.
  If we want to truly look and peek at the economy, measure the amount 
of debt our families have compared to their incomes. Look at the 
productivity numbers that are up compared to the wages that remain 
stagnant.
  At the same time that our people are suffering, large corporations 
are seeing record-breaking profits, and CEOs are being paid record-high 
salaries. It is simply unfair and immoral.

[[Page H713]]

  Raising the minimum wage is also a matter of racial justice. Workers 
of color are far more likely to be paid poverty wages than their White 
counterparts, and Black and Brown workers are far more likely to be 
victims of wage theft. I know because I used to represent them and 
fight for their fair access to their wages that they have earned.

  A $15 Federal minimum wage would increase the earnings of 38 percent 
of Black workers across our Nation, a raise that will be life-changing.
  It is time for all of us right here in Congress to earn our own pay 
and deliver this overdue minimum wage increase without delay. I hope 
folks understand, $15 is already the compromise. It is. If the minimum 
wage had kept up with worker productivity, it would already be at $24 
per hour.
  Workers aren't asking for anything they aren't already earning for 
their bosses. Without workers, there is no profit. It is high time for 
us to end the pattern of exploiting workers, our neighbors, family 
members.
  Raise the wage. It is the right thing to do for our Nation. It is so 
incredibly supported outside these Halls of Congress. Listen to the 
people who sent us here. They are urging us to please stop waiting.
  We have been given the power to change their lives for the better. 
Mr. Speaker, I thank, again, my colleague from New Mexico.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, Congresswoman Tlaib talked about 
the fact that now is the time. There is a call and an urgency for us to 
do this because it is the time of the pandemic. It is the time of such 
great suffering.
  My father had a saying that when it was time to get important stuff 
done, he would say, ``Ahora es cuando,'' it is time now. His saying is 
ringing through your words, and it is calling upon us to say what we 
need to say so that we do what we need to do and raise the wage. So, 
ahora es cuando. It is, indeed, time now.
  Thank you for explaining the urgency of what it is like to have to 
boil your water because you can't afford the utility bill. That should 
break all of our hearts, and it should urge us each to act and to act 
now with the power that we have been given by our constituents.
  I would now like to turn to one of my colleagues, one of our freshman 
class from New York City, Congressman Torres.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres).
  Mr. TORRES of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank Teresa for those kind 
words.
  I have the honor of representing New York 15, the South Bronx, which 
is often said to be the poorest congressional district in America. The 
unemployment rate in the South Bronx can be as high as 25 percent 
compared to 5 percent in the Upper East Side, so we are living through 
a tale of two cities.
  But COVID-19 has shown the South Bronx to be the essential 
congressional district. It is the home of essential workers who put 
their lives at risk during the peak of the pandemic so that the rest of 
us could safely shelter in place. We owe it to those workers to give 
them a fighting chance at a decent and dignified life.
  Our society will be judged by how we treat the most essential among 
us. There is a gap between the value of what our essential workers do 
and how poorly we treat them and how poorly we pay them. Bridging that 
essential gap is one of the great moral imperatives of our time.
  Raising the minimum wage is long overdue. The minimum wage in America 
has been lagging behind inflation. It has been lagging behind the 
productivity of the American workforce. It has been lagging behind the 
historic average.
  We have gone more than a decade, the longest we have ever gone, 
without raising the minimum wage by even a cent. By every metric, 
whether it is inflation or productivity or the historic average or the 
length of time that we have gone without raising the minimum wage, it 
is time to finally lift the minimum wage for the most essential workers 
among us.
  The statistics are clear that raising the minimum wage would lift 
900,000 Americans out of poverty. It would raise incomes for 17,000 
Americans.
  For me, the minimum wage is exactly that. It is the minimum of what 
we should do for our most essential workers. If we fail to raise the 
minimum wage, then shame on us. Shame on us for failing to do right by 
the essential workers who did right by all of us in our moment of 
greatest need.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Torres.
  What he has told us today is about the fact that there are districts 
in the country, including mine, including so many that we have heard 
about, where the minimum wage is too low. What we can't do is we can't 
have a United States of America where what you earn depends on where 
you live. That is what we are trying to do today, is say that where you 
live does not impact what you earn or where you work.
  Today, at a Senate hearing, Costco announced that it would begin 
paying their workers a $16-an-hour minimum wage. They have already 
recognized that that $15 level is too low, and they want to keep their 
workers.
  The reality is, we know that when people are paid well, then the 
turnover is less. The commitment is better, and paying a minimum wage, 
paying something where somebody can go home to their children, can put 
that food on the table without relying on SNAP benefits, that they can 
then say: I have done it. I can go work. I can come home.
  And it doesn't matter whether I live in your district, whether I live 
in Seattle, or whether I live in Coronado. It doesn't matter because 
there is a floor that is the same across the country, and it is not a 
poverty wage.

                              {time}  2015

  What we have now is a poverty wage. That is very clear. If you cannot 
use the minimum wage that we have now to pay your rent, to buy your 
food, and to pay your utilities, then that is the equivalent of a 
poverty wage. We know that. We know that because of the wages we have 
across our country.
  We have all worked. Congressman Torres, you have worked and looked to 
see: When does the Community Development Block Grant come in? Does it 
look like we are a distressed community or not? They look at what that 
median income is, and if you are earning the median wage, you are in 
poverty, right?
  Mr. TORRES of New York. Mr. Speaker, she is exactly right. The 
promise of America is that if you work hard and play by the rules, then 
you should have access to a decent, dignified life. Too many of our 
essential workers are paid starvation wages.
  You have people who are doing everything right. They are working 
their heart out for the country and for their families, and they are 
struggling to survive because the cost of living in America, especially 
in cities like New York, is spiraling out of control.
  So the promise of America is broken as long as we continue to pay our 
most essential workers poverty wages. It is no longer defensible.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, earlier we spoke about the fact 
that to say thank you to these essential workers regularly and over and 
over again but to refuse to pay a living wage, a minimum wage of at 
least what we are asking for in this bill, is really not saying thank 
you at all, is it? It rings hollow.
  Mr. TORRES of New York. Mr. Speaker, we cannot simply honor our 
essential workers with hollow words. We, as a country, have to put our 
money where our mouth is and do right by them.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my 
time.
  Ms. LEE of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of raising the 
federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. I want to thank my friend and 
colleague Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez from New Mexico's 3rd 
district for convening this special order hour. Raising the federal 
minimum wage to $15 an hour is one critical step towards ensuring an 
equitable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The federal minimum wage 
has been at $7.25 for more than a decade. This is the longest period of 
time without an increase in the minimum wage in US history. Inflation 
has eroded this amount to a fraction of its previous value. We must 
increase the wage and we must do it now.
  Someone working a full time job at the current federal minimum wage 
only earns $15,000 a year. That is a disgrace. A full time worker in 
this country should be able to put

[[Page H714]]

food on their table and a roof over their head and be able to pay their 
other expenses with their earnings. Many of these minimum wage workers 
are essential workers, helping our communities endure this pandemic.
  Raising the minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour isn't a cure-all. 
In high cost urban areas, such as the one I represent in the Bay Area, 
fifteen dollars an hour still is not enough to get ahead. But raising 
the federal minimum wage has been shown to help lift wages across the 
board for people at the lower end of the income scale.
  A fifteen dollar minimum wage would give 27 million low-wage workers 
a raise and lift nearly one MILLION people out of poverty. But this 
isn't just an economic need--it's a racial justice imperative. Many 
people of color have been paid poverty wages for too long--deepening 
the long standing racial and economic divisions in this country. 
African Americans, Hispanics and Asian Americans are all much more 
likely to make only the minimum wage.
  Recent polling shows that 72 percent of Americans, a vast majority, 
support raising the minimum wage, including Republicans and 
Independents. We need to ensure workers get paid living wages, 
especially in times of crisis. Raising the minimum wage is a necessary 
first step to growing our economy and recovering from this pandemic. 
Additionally, it will also lessen the need for full time workers to be 
receiving public assistance. When you raise the wages of the lowest-
paid workers, it is good for our communities and our country. Those 
workers can then spend money in their communities, boosting local small 
businesses and our entire economy.

                          ____________________