Press Releases

Congresswoman Suzan DelBene (WA-01) issued the following statement today, on the sixth anniversary of the last federal minimum wage increase to $7.25 an hour:

“The minimum wage in America has remained stagnant for far too long, while the cost of living has steadily increased across the country,” DelBene said. “Too many Americans work 40 hours or more every week and still can’t earn a living wage. We cannot achieve strong economic growth unless all working families have the opportunity to succeed.

“It’s time for Congress to take a stand for working families and focus on strengthening the middle class. We need to start taking meaningful action to reverse the trend of income inequality in the United States. That’s why I helped introduce the Raise the Wage Act, which would increase the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.”

The Raise the Wage Act, led by Congressman Bobby Scott (VA-03) and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), would also index future minimum wage increases to the median wage and slowly eliminates the tipped minimum wage, which has remained at $2.13 for decades. The bill would give nearly 40 million hard-working Americans a raise, including the parents of 18 million children. Nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women and more than 70 percent of workers in tipped professions are female.

###