For the last two years our community has helped lead a conversation about how our vigorous national economy is no longer creating broad-based prosperity. We have made the case that despite strong GDP and productivity growth and record corporate profits, the wages and incomes of most Americans has declined. Median family income for households headed by someone of working age dropped by more than $2500 since President Bush took office.
As progressives we cannot accept an economy that is enriching the very top while leaving most Americans behind. That’s why we’ve been advocating for a new national strategy to ensure that this new age of globalization works for all Americans.
A critical part of that national strategy must be to raise the minimum wage. It has not been raised since 1997; its real value is the lowest since the Second World War; and it now provides a full time income of less than $11,000 a year, low enough to ensure that workers earning just the minimum wage will be more than $5000 dollars below the poverty line for a family of three.
So today we are proud to announce that NDN is joining a broad coalition of progressive organizations in campaigning for an increased minimum wage. Though Republicans in Washington have repeatedly blocked efforts to raise the national minimum wage, voters in several states this year have an opportunity to pass ballot initiatives that would raise wage in their state and help hundreds of thousands of families take another important step up the economic ladder.
At NDN we will be working to pass ballot initiatives in two states, Arizona and Colorado. And we will be doing so by deploying our expertise in reaching the Latino community by participating in media campaigns in each state encouraging Latino families to vote for Arizona’s Proposition 202 and Colorado’s Amendment 42. We will be working closely with the Civic Participation Campaign’s Mi Familia Vota campaign, a non-partisan effort designed to encourage Latino participation in American civil society. If passed, the propositions would raise the hourly minimum wage to $6.75 in Arizona, and $6.85 in Colorado, from the current national minimum of $5.15.
NDN believes this minimum wage issue is particularly important for the Hispanic community. Our friends at The Economic Policy Institute estimate that while 14% of the total workforce is Hispanic, Hispanics make up 19% of workers who would benefit from a fair increase in the minimum wage.
I hope you will listen to the ads, learn more about the national initiative to raise the minimum wage and if you believe this effort is as important as we believe it is, support our work by making a contribution to our campaign today.
