President Clinton: Raising the Minimum Wage--An Overdue Pay Raise for America’s Working Families

President Clinton: Raising the Minimum Wage--An Overdue Pay Raise for America’s Working Families

Monday, January 8, 2001

Today, in his speech to the AFL-CIO, President Clinton will call on Congress to raise the minimum wage for millions of hard-pressed working Americans. To make up for lost time, lost wages, and the continued decline of in the purchasing power of the minimum wage, the President will call for an increase well over the $1.00 increase (to $6.15 an hour) he proposed last year. So far, delay has cost a full-time minimum-wage worker more than $1700 in lost wages. Inflation has eroded the minimum wage by nearly $0.40 an hour—or $800 a year for a full-time worker—in purchasing power since the President first proposed the $6.15 minimum wage in 1998. President Clinton will emphasize that the price for a minimum wage increase should not be the repeal of overtime protections, as ongressional Republicans proposed last year. He will also release a report from his National Economic Council showing that raising the minimum wage is good for American workers and good for the American economy. Millions of American workers—mostly adults and many supporting families—would benefit from a higher minimum wage. The report finds that:



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