by Carol Lee

Created on: January 30, 2007   Last Updated: April 10, 2012

Imagine having to work 12-hour days, 6 days a week just to be able to afford rent on a modest 2-bedroom apartment and put food on the table for your family. Despite your long hours, you can barely afford to pay your utility bills and insurance payments, let alone pay for luxuries like clothing or a vacation. You have no savings, in fact you can barely keep your head above water, and despite this, the government refuses to help you. This is the reality for millions of American workers employed in minimum-wage or barely above minimum- wage jobs. The saddest thing about this situation is that millions of Americans would be saved from a life of poverty, if only the American government would pass a law raising the minimum wage.

The current federal minimum wage of $5.15 is not enough for the American worker to afford a decent standard of living. The last minimum wage increase occurred 10 years ago, in 1997. The federal minimum wage has declined in buying power. The minimum wage in 1968, $1.60 per hour, is equivalent to $8.17 today. The value of the federal minimum wage is at its lowest inflation-adjusted total in 50 years. In real terms, wages for non-managerial retail workers have fallen 18% since 1975.

An adult worker simply cannot afford all of his living necessities on a minimum-wage paycheck. In Baltimore, members of BUILD, an association of local religious and community groups, found that 30% of soup-kitchen attendees had jobs, but their jobs didn't pay enough to give them a ladder out of poverty. An average 2-bedroom apartment in Montgomery County, Maryland costs $1000 per month, affordable to a minimum wage-earning couple only if they work a combined 100 hours per week. In the words of John Edwards, one proponent of raising the minimum wage, "You can't live on $6, $7, or $8 an hour and have anything to fall back on. Instead of getting ahead, which most families want to focus on, they're focused on survival."

The solution to this problem is to raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage. Congress is already working to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over the course of 3 years. The House of Representatives voted on January 10 to increase the minimum wage, but the bill still needs to be approved in the Senate. The bill would raise the minimum wage in 3 steps: $5.85 per hour 60 days after the bill is signed, $6.55 after 1 year, and $7.25 per hour in 2 years. This is a good start but still does not succeed in raising the minimum wage to

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