What you thought about passing the minimum wage
After a decade of waiting, we finally passed legislation to raise the minimum wage.
Thank you all for all you did to help.
You called your senators.
You talked to your friends and family.
You went to work every day and thought about what it was worth.
You voted last fall.
And tens of thousands of you signed Senator Kennedy's minimum wage petition!
Here are just some of the comments that people shared as they signed the minimum wage petition:
I feel shame when I see that working people can have two jobs and not make it. Where is the american dream. I demand that the minimum wage be increased right away.
- Gaelle Machard from East Elmhurst, NY
I believe that the minimum wage should have been raised along long time ago. I also think that Congress, and any one else that makes well over the minimun wage should try to live on $5.15 an hour for a year and just maybe their attitude would change. I myself am a single mother of one, and I make about $12-$15 an hour an let me tell you it still isnt enough.
- Collen Somers from Weymouth, MA
Not only does the low minimum wage affect our Country's poor, it affects me too! I went to work to get benefits for my family and ended up never bringing home a paycheck because the cost of benefits being taken out of my check exceeded my biweekly earnings! How would any of you feel about working and never bringing home a paycheck to show for it?
- Amy Irvin from Aurora, CO
I'm one of the lucky single moms of America, raising 3 wonderful kids alone on above minimum wage, yet still struggling to get by day-by-day. Between the cost of gas and day-to-day living it's a juggling act to make sure everything is paid and the kids still have food at night. I DON'T know how anyone could survive on minimum wage in this day and age. It's amazingly arrogant that our Congress could give themselves regular healthy wage increases when the women and children that they are supposed to be serving are struggling at such a proportion.
- Nina De Vaul from Eugene, OR
Everyone who works deserves an equal seat at the table. That goes for janitors, maids, fruit pickers and dishwashers the same as for CEOs. The difference in the best earnings in America and the worst - or even the average - is an obscene crime.
- Billy Rainbow from Capitola, CA
This is such long awaited, important legislation. Too many Americans are below the poverty line. Two in my family. They are hard workers and deserve to make a living wage.
- Patricia LeBoutillie from Sioux Falls, SD
Someone who is working full time should be able to live above the poverty level.
- Alexandra Mummery from Alameda, CA
