- The federal minimum wage was last raised in 2009 to $7.25 an hour—meaning it no longer achieves Congress’s original objective of serving as a wage floor to guarantee economic well-being for the lowest-paid workers.
- Policymakers should restore the minimum wage to a level that puts workers within reach of a living wage. Specifically, the federal minimum wage should be raised to two-thirds of median hourly wages and indexed annually to median wage growth. This would mean increasing from $7.25 per hour to $20 per hour by 2030 or $25 per hour by 2038.
- An increase to the federal minimum wage alone is not a sufficient foundation for families to build economic security. Private-sector employees need just-cause protections to ensure workers are not fired without reason or without sufficient notice and severance pay.
- In an economy rife with wage theft, the Department of Labor needs the ability to meaningfully enforce wage protections and ensure workers receive the earnings they are due.
Families across the United States are struggling financially. Today, about 50 percent of full-time workers don’t earn enough to cover the cost of living for a family of four in their community.1 Over the last year, more workers have been borrowing from their retirement accounts, and many more struggle to set money aside for their future, be that a down payment for a house or retirement.2 Workers’ financial precarity isn’t new. It’s been decades in the making as workers’ bargaining power has...
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