Working Americans Celebrate Minimum Wage Raise

By Nicole Olsen
OneWorld US, 7/25/07

Wal-Mart employee. © In These Times
After July 24th the United States' lowest paid workers can expect to be paid a little extra. The minimum wage increased 70 cents on Tuesday, ending the longest span without an increase since the creation of the minimum wage in 1938.

According to the Fair Minimum Wage Act, signed by President George W. Bush in May, the nationwide minimum wage will continue to increase by 70 cents every summer until 2009, when it will reach $7.25 an hour.

Rev. Dr. Paul Sherry, the leader of a nonpartisan coalition working to achieve fair living wages for all U.S. workers, hailed the legislation in a speech outside the U.S. Capitol. "A just minimum wage is not only ethically right; it is also economically right," he said, adding that this increase still does not ensure that a minimum salary will translate into a "livable" income for working families.

Georgetown students went on hunger strike in 2006 to demand a 'living wage' for all university employees. © Independent Media Center
Even at $7.25 per hour, the inflation-adjusted minimum wage remains $2 below what it was in 1968, Sherry said.

Inside the Capitol, legislators have been working to help close the gender pay gap too. The Fair Pay Act, introduced in the Senate Friday, would close a legal loophole that has made it difficult for women to bring suit over pay discrimination issues in the United States.

Meanwhile, pay discrimination has also become a hot-button issue in Europe, as a new report signaled that the continent's pay gap between women and men remains almost the same today as it was ten years ago.

Women in EU states earn on average 15 percent less than men, the report says, even though more women attend universities and perform better in school.

Copyright 2007 OneWorld
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