Take Action! (Minimum Wage Legislation)

Yesterday, I posted an article documenting that the inflation-adjusted value of minimum wage in the United States has reached a 55-year low as of this spring. Today, I’m going to ask you to take some simple action to pressure members of Congress to remedy this shameful state. Here’s what I have in mind:

Yesterday, I posted an article documenting that the inflation-adjusted value of minimum wage in the United States has reached a 55-year low as of this spring. Today, I’m going to ask you to take some simple action to pressure members of Congress to remedy this shameful state. Here’s what I have in mind:

Senate
In the Senate, Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan has introduced S. 14, a bill to increase the minimum wage to a more reasonable historical level. The additional 13 Senators listed below have added their names to S. 14 as cosponsors, and so deserve at least some appreciation:

Senator Barbara Boxer
Senator Hillary Clinton
Senator Jon Corzine
Senator Mark Dayton
Senator Byron Dorgan
Senator Richard Durbin
Senator Daniel Inouye
Senator Edward Kennedy
Senator Patrick Leahy
Senator Barbara Mikulski
Senator Harry Reid
Senator John Rockefeller
Senator Charles Schumer

It should go without saying that each of the above are Democrats. We should hardly expect a typical Republican to care about the working poor in America. However, it is unfortunately the case that a number of Senate Democrats have not bothered to support an increase in the minimum wage. Below are the names of Democratic laggards on S. 14, along with contact information so that you can give them a quick, forceful nudge:

Senator Daniel Akaka (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Max Baucus (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Evan Bayh (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Joseph Biden (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Jeff Bingaman (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Robert Byrd (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Maria Cantwell (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Thomas Carper (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Kent Conrad (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Christopher Dodd (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Russell Feingold (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Dianne Feinstein (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Tom Harkin (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Tim Johnson (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator John Kerry (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Herb Kohl (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Mary Landrieu (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Frank Lautenberg (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Carl Levin (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Joseph Lieberman (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Blanche Lincoln (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Bill Nelson (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Ben Nelson (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Barack Obama (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Mark Pryor (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Jack Reed (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Paul Sarbanes (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Ron Wyden (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]

I urge you to contact your home-state senators, since senators tend to pay attention to feedback from direct constituents only. However, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana is someone that everyone can call. The man apparently feels he is presidential material, which should make him interested in what every potential voter has to say about the minimum wage. If you have the extra time, get in touch with Sen. Bayh and let him know that a politician who doesn’t support the minimum wage just isn’t presidential material.

Finally, although most Republicans can be wholly written off when it comes to concern for America’s working poor, there are a few Republican Senators who occasionally show some evidence of reason. The following Republican members of the Senate just might respond to constituent pressure on the minimum wage:

Senator Lincoln Chafee (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Susan Collins (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Chuck Grassley(email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Chuck Hagel (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Olympia Snowe (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]
Senator Arlen Specter (email) phone: [phone] fax: [phone]

House of Representatives

At least in the Senate, someone’s bothered to introduce minimum wage legislation. But in the House, apart from Rick Santorum’s stealth plan to gut the minimum wage further, there just isn’t a piece of legislation out there.

Before we can ask our Representatives to support minimum wage legislation, there’s got to be minimum wage legislation in the first place. So one thing you can do is to contact your Representative and ask them why in the name of all that is fair, just, and reasonable they haven’t stepped up to the plate and drafted minimum wage legislation themselves. But a special (and encouragingly positive) focus should be placed on Rep. George Miller of California. He’s consistently supported a progressive policy platform in the past, and in the 108th Congress, he introduced and promoted legislation to raise the minimum wage. It wouldn’t hurt for us to ask him to simply introduce that legislation again; and it wouldn’t hurt him to know that there are many Americans out there who care enough to want him to take the effort.

We’ve all been disappointed in the distant and not-so-distant past by politicians who have let us and those less fortunate than us down. I have to confess to feeling helpless at times. But I’m gathering up what pluck I’ve got left and contacting my senators and representative today. Getting psychologically perturbed on a lonely basis, we won’t be heard. Acting in concert, perhaps we can make some impact.

I know that here, I’ve only discussed actions to be taken on the federal Congressional level. But there are other things, at other levels, that can be done to move the minimum wage closer to a living wage. Perhaps you’re engaged in such efforts already. Consider this an invitation to share what you know about what’s already going on, to contribute your constructive ideas about what could go on, and to help build bridges between what might be disconnected but parallel campaigns.

Words and actions are needed in these Irregular Times...