By CAP Action War Room

Like CAP Action on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

Conservatives Line Up To Oppose Minimum Wage Increase

Yesterday, during a public forum hosted by Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL), a fast food worker named Shaneeka Rainer stood up to ask the Congressman to support increasing the minimum wage. Rainer has worked an entire decade receiving only one raise: when Congress increased the minimum wage in 2007.

Here is what happened, as reported by Think Progress (head over there for a video of the exchange):

Ross, who is seeking a third term representing Tampa’s northwest suburbs, was unmoved by Rainer’s plea. “It’s not right,” the Florida Republican said. “If we are going to make it a living wage, who’s going to pay for it?”

An audience member declared that he’d gladly pay slightly more for a hamburger in order to increase the minimum wage, prompting applause from the crowd.

Rainer asked the congressman whether he would be willing to come work at Arby’s with him for one day so he can see how difficult minimum wage work is, but Ross demurred. Instead, he railed against the very notion of a minimum wage and even the concept of labor laws in general.

“If the government’s going to tell me how much I can get paid and when I can work and when I can’t work, then we have a serious problem in this country,” Ross said.

There are numerous reasons that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 will increase economic prosperity and not hurt job creation. But Ross is far from the only conservative policymaker who has publicly shared his backward and unpopular view about the minimum wage. Some not only oppose an increase, but they would go so far as to repeal the existing minimum wage altogether. We’ve put together a list of some of these “minimum wage deniers”:

• Sen. Lamar Alexander: “I Do Not Believe In” The Minimum Wage. At a Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee meeting to mark 75 years since the signing of the Federal Labor Standards Act, which set a minimum wage and mandated overtime pay, Alexander, the ranking Republican on the committee, jumped into a discussion between a witness from the Heritage Foundation and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to say of the minimum wage, “I do not believe in it.” Sanders followed up, asking, “So you do not believe in the concept of the minimum wage?” “That’s correct,” Alexander responded. “You would abolish the minimum wage?” “Correct.”
• Gov. Rick Perry Questioned The Constitutionality Of The Minimum Wage. The outspoken Texas governor has called Social Security an “illegal Ponzi scheme,” but he hasn’t limited his scorn for the social safety net to just that program. In the 1930s, Perry said, “an arrogant President [Franklin] Roosevelt, an emboldened Congress” and a compliant Supreme Court agreed the federal government could enforce minimum wages — and the result has been “a complete and total failure.” In case those views weren’t clear enough, he also doesn’t think “it’s the government’s business to be setting the minimum wage out there.”
• John Boehner: I’d Rather Kill Myself Than Raise The Minimum Wage. House Speaker John Boehner is so against raising the minimum wage that he once commented that he would “commit suicide before I vote on a clean minimum-wage bill.” Yikes.
• Rep. Joe Barton Would Vote To Repeal The Minimum Wage. Responding to President Obama’s call to raise the minimum wage, Rep. Joe Barton suggested that the minimum wage should be repealed completely. “I think it’s outlived its usefulness,” Barton said. “It may have been of some value back in the Great Depression. I would vote to repeal the minimum wage.”
• Gov. Susana Martinez Vetoed Minimum Wage Legislation In 2013. The New Mexico governor is in the news today for other reasons — Mother Jones published previously unreleased audio recordings that aren’t exactly flattering. In 2013, though, Martinez vetoed a bill that passed both houses of the state legislature raising the minimum wage from $7.50 to $8.50.
• Gov. Scott Walker Calls Efforts To Raise The Minimum Wage A Misguided Political Stunt. “I think it is nothing more than a misguided political stunt,’ the Wisconsin governor said of efforts to raise the wage. To Walker, apparently, working to reduce inequality and put money back in the pockets of hard-working low-income Americans is “little more than a political grandstanding stunt.”

BOTTOM LINE: The minimum wage has been a good thing for this country and the effort to increase it is no stunt. You shouldn’t work full time and still live in poverty in America. As incomes at the very top keep going up and up and up, it’s time to put some more money back in the pockets of hard-working low-income Americans too. Republicans have supported increasing the minimum wage in the recent past, and they should again — instead of being the “party of NO.”

By CAP Action War Room

Like CAP Action on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

More Good News On The Minimum Wage

It has been several months since we shared the map below, showing the momentum throughout the country for increasing the minimum wage.

There’s been even more good news recently, as states continue to take action without waiting for Congress. Just since late March, four states have passed bills increasing the minimum wage:

March 27: Connecticut Becomes The First State In The Nation To Raise Its Minimum Wage To $10.10. As Democrats in Congress and President Obama push for national legislation to raise the minimum wage to $10.10, Connecticut became the first state to do so on it’s own. The law is expected to raise pay for 227,000 workers in the state, or about 15 percent of its workforce.

April 2: West Virginia Raises Its Minimum Wage, Proving Bipartisan Grassroots Support. West Virginia didn’t vote for Barack Obama for President. But the state agrees with him on the need to raise the minimum wage. Lawmakers voted to raise its wage from the federal level of $7.25 to $8.75 by 2016, which will lift wages for 22,000 minimum wage workers and tens of thousands more who earn above $7.25 per hour but below $8.

April 7: Maryland Joins Connecticut In Raising Its Minimum Wage To $10.10. Maryland’s minimum wage law phases in over the next four years, a little more slowly than Connecticut’s, but still to the $10.10 threshold being pushed at the federal level. The bill was a top priority for Gov. Martin O’Malley.

April 10: Minnesota Lawmakers OK Raising State’s Minimum Wage To $9.50. Minnesota’s current minimum wage is just $6.15 per hour, one of the lowest in the nation and more than a dollar below the federal minimum. The increase is expected to help boost the wages of about 350,000 workers in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

In states that haven’t passed legislation to raise the wage, lawmakers have been taking action and drawing attention to the issue in other ways. State legislators in Colorado, Florida, and Michigan took part last week in the “minimum wage challenge,” organized by the Progressive States Network as part of their National Week of Action for Real Prosperity Across America. The challenge is to spend just $42 for a week’s worth of food (a figure based on Department of Agriculture estimates for a nutritious diet on the most bare bones budget).

One participant, Michigan state representative Rashida Tlaib, recounts part of her experience: “I got to the counter and I thought I did well by calculating it. But I actually had to put three items away.” The minimum wage used to go further, she reflected. Now “a gallon of milk is six dollars. It’s an hour’s work for a gallon of milk.”

BOTTOM LINE: It’s a no brainer for Congress to take an important step in creating an economy that works for everyone by raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. But even without Congressional action, hundreds of thousands of low-wage workers around the country are getting raises. Five states so far this year have passed minimum wage laws, including four in just the last three weeks.

BONUS: While Congress is on recess for the next two weeks, make your own voice heard on this important issue! Check out an updating list of congressional town halls and events by going to www.accountablecongress.com.