LET
JUSTICE ROLL CAMPAIGN CALLS ON HOUSE OF REPS. TO
REPRESENT PEOPLE BY RAISING MINIMUM WAGE
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Leslie Tune at (202) 481-6927, Ltune@ncccusa.org
Washington,
D.C., June 22, 2006 -- The Let Justice Roll
Living Wage Campaign is calling on the House
of Representatives to represent the people by
voting to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to
at least $7.25 an hour.
A fast-growing
partnership of more than 70 major national and
state faith and community groups, the Let
Justice Roll Campaign said the defeat of the Kennedy
Amendment Wednesday in the U.S. Senate is "morally
reprehensible."
Rev.
Dr. Paul Sherry, the Let Justice Roll Campaign
National Coordinator, said, "It is a moral
outrage that members of Congress think they need
another cost of living adjustment, bringing their
pay to nearly $170,000 a year, while leaving full-time
minimum wage workers at just $10,700 a year for
nine long years since 1997."
"How
would members of Congress like to wake up every
day knowing they will have to choose between rent
and health care, putting food in the refrigerator
or gas in the car," Rev. Sherry said. "Talking
about values is no substitute for valuing hardworking
men and women all across this nation who need
a decent minimum wage."
Tens of thousands of Let Justice Roll supporters
are calling and writing their elected officials
with a clear message: A job should keep you out
of poverty, not keep you in it. A raise to $7.25
an hour is the least we can do now for minimum
wage workers who have gone without a raise for
nine long years.
The Campaign believes the minimum wage is a bedrock
moral value. It is immoral that workers who care
for children, the ill and the elderly struggle
to care for their own families. It is immoral
that the minimum wage keeps people in poverty
instead of out of poverty.
This
week, the Senate was unwilling to follow the Golden
Rule: Do to others as you would have them do to
you. The House can act now to show they care not
only about their own paychecks, but they care
about the nation's poorest workers by increasing
the minimum wage.
The
Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign works to
raise the minimum wage at the federal and state
level, and played a leading role in recent state
minimum wage increases in Arkansas, Michigan and
West Virginia. Let Justice Roll organizers are
working now in support of ballot initiatives and
legislative efforts to increase the minimum wage
in states such as Arizona, Colorado, Missouri,
Montana, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Raising
the minimum wage is good for workers, business
and our economy. States that have raised their
minimum wage above the federal level have had
better employment trends, including among retail
and small businesses, than states that have not.
It's time for the federal minimum wage to increase
so that workers in every state can earn a living.
A
recently released report entitled "A
Just Minimum Wage: Good For Workers, Business
and Our Future," by Holly Sklar
and the Rev. Paul Sherry, counters all the arguments
against raising the minimum wage and offers vital
new insight into why the minimum wage is so important.
The report shows that raising the minimum wage
is an economic imperative for the enduring strength
of our workforce, businesses, communities and
economy, as well as a moral imperative for the
very soul of our nation. "A Just Minimum
Wage" was produced by the American Friends
Service Committee and the National Council of
Churches USA in support of the Let Justice Roll
Living Wage Campaign. Copies are available in
.pdf format at www.letjusticeroll.org
and in hard copy by contacting Leslie Tune at
the National Council of Churches USA at (202)
481-6927 or via email at Ltune@ncccusa.org.
Additional
information about the Let Justice Roll Living
Wage Campaign can be found online at www.letjusticeroll.org
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