U.S. Senate to vote on minimum wage hike in late April

The U.S. Senate will vote on raising the nation’s minimum wage after lawmakers return from their Easter-Passover recess later this month, its sponsor says. And – to nobody’s great surprise – the issue is becoming even more politicized than it was before.

That announcement by Senate Labor Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, brought cheers from a jammed Capitol rally on April 3 after the labor-backed “Raise The Wage” bus ended its 11-state tour by halting at the foot of Capitol Hill.

But it also gives unionists and their allies several more weeks to lobby lawmakers to raise the wage. That recess “is the time to raise hell and raise a ruckus” to force lawmakers to vote to raise the wage, Harkin declared.

“If we don’t win this vote, we’ll bring it up again,” Harkin added.  “And if we don’t win that vote, we’ll bring it up again.  And if we don’t win that vote, we’ll bring it up in November and win at the polls.”

Unionists and minimum wage workers got off the bus to tell Harkin, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Obama administration Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and other supportive unionists and lawmakers stories of trying to survive on $7.25 an hour – or, in the case of workers who depend on tips, far less.

Harkin and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., are leading the charge for raising the minimum wage in three 95-cents-a-year steps to $10.10 an hour in 2016 and indexing it to inflation after that. The tipped wage, now $2.13 hourly, hasn’t risen since 1991. It would rise gradually to 70% of the regular minimum wage.

Millions of workers would benefit from the hike, speakers said. Pelosi noted the average minimum wage worker is 30 years old.  They’re usually single mothers, not teenagers, she added. And almost half of minimum wage workers have college degrees, other information shows.

“For five years, I never got a raise.” graying African-American worker Ruben Jones told the crowd, even though he works two minimum-wage jobs in the D.C. suburbs.   Halting at times to control his emotions, Jones said the minimum wage pays so little that “I have two children and four grandchildren in Ocean City, Md., and I can’t even afford to go visit them.”

Tipped workers have it even worse, said Anna Hovland, a server at two D.C.-area restaurants and a member of the Restaurant Opportunities Center. 

“My co-workers are struggling,” said Hovland. “One with two children works double shifts regularly. It’s the only way we can support ourselves. And in one of my jobs, I worked five hours a day, for a month, and cleared $40. And servers usually receive paychecks, after taxes are taken out, that say zero-point-zero-zero,” she added.  “That’s why I support the fair minimum wage act.”