[Raise the Floor Commentaries: Campaign for a Just Minimum Wage]

 

"They work full time in the richest nation on earth, yet they can't make ends meet. They can't make ends meet because their wages are too low. They are healthcare aides who can't afford health insurance. They work in the food industry, but depend on food banks to help feed their children. They are child care teachers who don't make enough to save for their own children's education. . . . They care for the elderly, but they have no pensions. . . . They work cleaning the homes and hotel rooms of people who make more in a day than they make in a year." -from Raise the Floor.

 

A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it. But a growing number of Americans are working hard and staying poor. The minimum wage has become a poverty wage instead of an anti-poverty wage. The minimum wage is much lower now, adjusting for the rising cost of living, than it was in the 1960s.

 

Rooted in powerful research and personal narratives, Raise the Floor shows what it costs to afford basic necessities, makes the case for a livable minimum wage, and shows how good wages are good business.

 

Most Americans believe that full-time workers shouldn't live in poverty. Raise the Floor shows how to translate that belief into reality. In addition to a higher minimum wage, Raise the Floor recommends improved Earned Income Tax Credit, healthcare, housing, child care and other policies to supplement wages in assuring people can meet their basic needs.

 

Raise the Floor is written in a lively, readable style and includes quotes from folks in all walks of life who recognize the need for practical solutions to ending poverty and strengthening our economy.

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