Anti-Hunger Group Calls Congressional Halt of Minimum Wage Increase Appalling

Bread for the World
Thursday, 7 December 2000

WASHINGTON—Congressional leaders have decided to kill a proposed $1-an-hour increase in the minimum wage, despite a year-long campaign by grassroots, faith-based and labor organizations.

Raising the $5.15-an-hour minimum wage has been a key legislative priority of Bread for the World, the nation's leading faith-based, grassroots lobbying organization on domestic and international hunger issues. This past year, its members generated 100,000 hand-written letters to Congress, urging them to raise the minimum wage.

Bread for the World President, Rev. David Beckmann, said:

"As people of faith, we find it absolutely appalling that Congress has decided to deny nearly 12 million workers an opportunity to make a better life for their families. With the Christmas season upon us, Congress has decided to shirk its responsibilities as leaders and take on the role of Scrooge.

"The 106th Congress will go down in history as having passed a pay increase for themselves, yet denying one for millions of people struggling to put food on the table."

Last month, Congress moved to increase its salary by $3,800 as part of the Treasury Department appropriations bill (vetoed by President Clinton, Oct. 30).

Minimum wage facts:

- One full-time minimum wage worker earns only $10,712 annually — falling $3,438 below the poverty line for a family of three.

- About 40 percent of minimum wage workers are the sole wage earners in their family.

- In inflation-adjusted terms, for the minimum wage to have the purchasing power it had in 1968, it would have to be raised to $7.49 per hour today.

- In the United States today, 31 million people, including 12 million children, live in homes that do not always have enough food to eat.

For more information, or to contact Bread for the World, see their website at: www.bread.org