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GUESTS: Besty Leondar Wright, co-author of The Color of Wealth, Rev. Stephen Copley, Let Justice Roll

Two weeks ago, Democrats in the House voted to raise the minimum wage. However, Republicans in the Senate are now trying to kill the legislation in all but killing the hope for a minimum wage increase this year. Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, writer of one of the wage increase bills, characterized the moves as “absolutely unconscionable,” particularly since in the same period Congress has voted themselves seven pay raises worth $28,000. Furthermore, Congress has passed at least $36 billion worth of tax cuts for small business, but it hasn’t voted to raise
the minimum wage since 1996 – the longest such spell on record. As a result of inflation, the purchasing power of the minimum wage has fallen to its lowest level in 52 years. If passed, the federal minimum wage increase would the first such increase since 1996; the longest period we have gone without a major wage increase in this country.

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