Don't You Think It's Time for a Raise?

If the 1968 minimum wage grew with inflation, it would be $10.67 today. Unfortunately the federal minimum wage is a miserly $7.25. According to the Economic Policy Institute, U.S. CEOs of major companies earned 18.3 times more than a typical worker in 1965 and in 2012, CEO pay was 202.3 times more than typical worker pay.

Don't you think it's time for a raise?

Fortunately, Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) has introduced H.R. 1346, the "Catching Up to 1968 Act of 2013," which would raise the minimum wage to $10.50 per hour and index it to inflation.

We started the Time for a Raise campaign to help mobilize citizens across the country to encourage Members of Congress to support the H.R. 1346 and catch up with 1968.

Here's how you can help:

1. Visit TimeForaRaise.Org and sign our petition. The single most important thing we can do to is to make sure members of Congress hear from their constituents on this issue. Each petition will be presented in person to your Member of Congress to request a town meeting in your district focused on raising the federal minimum wage. This means every signature counts!
2. We need citizen leaders in each Congressional district to be district captains to help spread the word about the need to raise the federal minimum wage. Captains will gather signatures, present the collected petitions to their member of Congress and help with media outreach. The time commitment is low -- no more than a few days of work -- and the upside is high: exercise your civic muscles as a community activist; meet with your Member of Congress; and, most importantly, correct a major injustice by helping thirty million Americans making less than $10.50 per hour receive the increased federal minimum wage they deserve.
   
   (Email pdavis@timeforaraise.org to be a district captain.)

Every step in our nation's struggle for fair working conditions -- from overtime pay to the 40-hour workweek to the original federal minimum wage -- has been hard earned. This step will be no different. However, if you sign our petition, become a district captain and spread the word about our campaign, we will have a serious chance of securing the increase in the federal minimum wage that low-wage workers have long deserved.

Onward with your participation!

Important Minimum Wage Facts

• Forbes Top 25 CEOs rake in more in just one hour of work than the average minimum wage worker does in a year.
• The working poor continue to be hard hit by the Wall Street crash and are struggling to afford basic necessities.
• Taxpayers subsidize big-box store low-wage workers who are often forced to supplement their McDonald's or Walmart wages with various welfare services. A study by the Democratic staff of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce found that a single Walmart costs taxpayers at least $904,542 per year and could cost taxpayers up to $1,744,590 per year - about $5,815 per employee.
• Poll after poll has shown that about 70 percent of the American public -- including a majority of Republicans -- support increasing the federal minimum wage.
• When low-wage workers receive a wage increase, they spend that money back into the economy to pay for the necessities of life. In 2011, a Chicago Federal Reserve study showed that for every dollar increase in the hourly pay of a minimum-wage worker, the result was $2,800 in new consumer spending from that worker's household over the year.
• Studies from the Economic Policy Institute indicate that a $10.50 hourly minimum wage would increase economic activity by at least $30 billion over each of the first two years and add 140,000 jobs.