Fair, Living Wages - a Moral Issue

$10.74

How much the federal minimum wage would be if it had kept up with inflation over the past 40 years. Instead, it’s $7.25. Learn More

$15,080

The annual income for a full-time employee working the entire year at the federal minimum wage.

0

The number of states where a minimum wage worker can afford a two-bedroom apartment working a 40-hour week. Learn More

3

The number of times Congress passed legislation to increase the minimum wage in the last 30 years.

Jesus talked about paying workers fairly and about being just overseers of others.  If we are to be a moral nation, we have to care about those who are earning the minimum, and whether that minimum is enough to support life.

America has a social safety net for those who cannot work, are disabled, elderly etc.  But full-time workers should not have to go to our social safety net for help.  Companies who have able-bodied workers and simply don't pay them enough to live on are unjust.  It is immoral to pay people so low that they have to go to SNAP (food stamps) to feed their kids even while they are working 40 hours a week serving food.

Working 40 hours a week should earn you enough to cover the basics of life: food, shelter, transportation, health insurance,  clothing etc.   Minimum wage ($7.25), even at 40 hours a week, simply isn't enough.   If the minimum wage had simply kept up with inflation since being signed into law  today it would be $10.74.   California has, as a state, raised their minimum wage to $10, but this is a national issue, an issue directly related to our constitutional proclamation that all deserve "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."  It is unpatriotic to not pay American workers enough to support the basics of life.

Write to your senators & congressional representative on this issue

sign this petition through Credo, a faith-based organization that promotes justice in our nation's laws.

We have to support the poor, the least, the one's Jesus cared for.