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"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 health care 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."—from Raise the Floor
A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it. But millions of people make up the working poor in the U.S. Rooted in powerful new research and personal narratives, Raise the Floor makes the case for a livable minimum wage and shows how good wages are good business.
Raise the Floor illustrates how the current annual minimum wage income of $10,712 a year just doesn’t add up. For example, to make ends meet, two parents with two children would have work more than three full-time minimum wage jobs—66 hours a week—leaving little time for sleep, family outings, religious services, or participating in community activities with their kids.
In a January 2002 poll of likely voters, Americans overwhelmingly identified raising the minimum wage as key to stimulating the economy. By a resounding 77 percent, these voters favored increasing the minimum wage to $8 an hour—the amount a single, full-time worker needs to meet minimum needs.
Raise the Floor is written in a lively, readable style and includes boxed quotes from folks in all walks of life who recognize the need for practical solutions to ending poverty. Documented with 60 tables and charts.
| Overview | 1 | |
| 1 | It Just Doesn't Add Up | 25 |
| 2 | A National Minimum Needs Budget | 37 |
| 3 | Shortchanging The Minimum Wage | 49 |
| 4 | Good Wages Are Good Business | 65 |
| 5 | $8 Minimum - Make It A Living | 89 |
| 6 | Policies To Make Ends Meet | 115 |
| 7 | Turning Point | 165 |
| Afterword | 175 | |
| App. A: Background Tables | 177 | |
| App. B: Minimum Needs Budget Methodology | 189 | |
| App. C | Regional Variations in Minimum Needs Budgets: New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Des Moines, IA; Kansas City, MO; and Gadsden, AL | 195 |
| App. D | Summary of Successful Living Wage Campaigns | 207 |
| App. E | Methodology for Computing Minimum Wage Increase | 217 |
| Notes | 221 | |
| Partner Organizations | 243 | |
| About the Authors | 245 | |
| About the Ms. Foundation for Women | 246 |
Overview
"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 health care 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."—from Raise the Floor
A job should ...