Letter to the Editor: Raising the Minimum Wage Will Help America

To the editor:

For the past four years, the federal minimum wage has been stuck at just $7.25 an hour. This is a poverty-level wage that leaves millions of workers unable to afford basics.

In the coming weeks, the Senate is expected to vote on the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, which would raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour and index it to rise with the cost of living. Thirty million low-paid workers would get a much-needed raise.

The Fair Minimum Wage Act would also raise the minimum wage for tipped workers, which has remained stuck at $2.13 per hour for the past 22 years.

Women make up 70 percent of tipped workers. Raising the tipped minimum wage is critical to promoting fairness and help insure economic security for women across the country.

The organization 9 to 5 encourages you to call your senators now and tell them to support the Fair Minimum Wage Act.

The effect of a base wage of $7.25 an hour is contributing to this country’s economic decline and to America slouching toward third-world status. This is very unfortunate for hard-working Americans who have become merely subjugated working stock to support greedy corporations. Anyone who objects to such oppression and to the greedy turning America into a huge ghetto, needs to take a stand and support whatever can help working Americans. Lifting the minimum wage is a start and will also help America as a whole. The economy cannot afford another year of poverty-level wages.

Judy Quaglia Belanger

Pawtucket, RI