Weprin Calls For Federal Minimum Wage Increase

In honor of Labor Day, the American workers' holiday, Councilmember David I. Weprin (D-Hollis), Chair of the Council Finance Committee, announced the introduction of a City Council resolution calling on Congress to increase the federal minimum wage as soon as Congress resumes its session from the summer adjournment. Currently, the federal minimum wage sits at a paltry $5.15 per hour, stagnant since its last increase in 1997. Congress's inability to pass an increase in the minimum wage has left most of the country's poor working class without a livable wage for far too long, hopefully my resolution, which has the backing of several labor unions and many of my Council colleagues, will encourage Congress to take the only fair course of action, an increase in the minimum wage," said Councilman Weprin.

Recent attempts to increase the minimum wage have fallen prey to party politics, leaving America's labor force without a livable wage. "Members of Congress must be made to understand that they cannot get away with playing politics with peoples' lives. Enacting legislation that will protect the thinly stretched pocketbooks of our workforce should be above politics even in an election year. Working families across the country deserve better from their federally elected representatives than to have their wages dependent on a game of political ping-pong. An increase in the minimum wage is not just well deserved, it is well over due," said Weprin.

The current rate of $5.15 is actually only equal to $4.04 in 1996 (the year prior to the last increase), therefore, not only has the minimum wage not been increased over the past nine years, its value has actually decreased significantly since it was last raised. It was only months ago that Republicans in Congress, up to their usual tactics of back-handed maneuvering and obfuscation of any positive change for the American worker, effectively killed yet another attempt to advance the cause of the labor force by attaching an amendment to a wage increase with a tax break on the estates of millionaires. "I do not know about you, but when it comes to devising methods to adequately compensate millions of working families for their hours of labor, an idea that would save millions for millionaires with another tax break is the last thing from my mind," said Weprin.