Pledge Your Vote to Raise the Minimum Wage

Pledge Your Vote to Raise the Minimum Wage

Full-time work at the minimum wage earns just $206 a week. That’s not enough to keep even a small family out of poverty. For many hard-working low-wage earners, it’s not enough to put food on the table, a roof overhead and shoes on the children’s feet.

You can make a difference Nov. 7. Your vote will help determine whether minimum wage workers in your state and the nation get a desperately needed raise. Please sign this pledge that you will use your vote to lift the minimum wage:

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: Pledge to Vote to Raise the Minimum Wage

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

No parent should work full time and not be able to lift his or her family from poverty. No hard-working mother should be unable to afford shoes for her children. No hard-working father should wonder where his family's next meal will come from.

I pledge to vote for my state's minimum wage increase Nov. 7 and to vote for U.S. Senate and House candidates who will fight to raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25--with no poison pills and no strings attached.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
October 23, 2006


Background Information

Life at the minimum wage means $206 a week. It means swallowing your dreams and working just to survive. It means not being able to buy shoes for your children...putting in 10 hours a day just to pay for a room for the night...facing the hard fact that you can’t afford college...not knowing where your family’s next meal will come from.

The only thing that has blocked an increase in the federal minimum wage—from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour—has been the unwillingness of Republican congressional leaders to allow a clean vote on the legislation with no poison pills and no strings attached.

Minimum wage workers have been waiting a decade for a nationwide raise that can help lift their families out of poverty. But the Republican leadership has pulled every kind of cynical political ploy imaginable to block a minimum wage increase—even holding it hostage to budget-busting tax breaks for the 8,200 wealthiest estates in America. Minimum wage workers should not have to get in line behind Paris Hilton and the Wal-Mart heirs to receive the long-overdue pay increase they rightly deserve. In this election, we must elect members of Congress who will give America a raise.

 Please take a moment right now to pledge that you will vote Nov. 7 to raise the minimum wage.