28% of those who would benefit from living wage are parents

If you’re earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour then you live below the federal poverty guidelines. In the “best” case scenario, where you have full time hours, that’s an annual income of around $15,000.

No wonder that 40% of Americans would be unable to come up with $400 for an emergency expense. 

That the minimum wage could fairly be called the poverty wage is a good indication that it’s broken—and most of us know it. That’s why campaigns are gaining traction across the country, including Fight For $15, which seeks to increase the minimum wage from it’s current level, where it has languished for a decade, the longest period in U.S. history without an increase, to $15/h.

In our region, we’ve been talking about the consequences of major challenges for families in Southeastern PA through our popular community panel discussions about our Underwater series of reports.

[CLICK TO SIGN UP: Don’t miss Underwater: What’s Sinking Families in Montgomery County, June 20, in Norristown]

The series includes recommendations, like correcting the minimum wage, to alleviate the pressures affecting families, pushing them to the brink of financial catastrophe. In fact, raising the state minimum wage (which matches the federal policy) was also a key recommendation in our Excluido series of reports on how to stem the tide of rising child poverty rates.

Raising the minimum wage is not about helping teens afford cooler running shoes with earnings from their McJobs. The sad reality is that the average age of workers who would benefit from increasing the minimum wage is 36 years old, 28% have children, and, on average, they earn more than half of their family’s total income, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Local governments are moving to correct the punishingly paltry minimum, which pushes low wage earners to turn to safety-net programs to survive. Philadelphia’s mayor, a longtime advocate for a living wage, worked with council to create a systemic solution to fighting poverty in December and instituted a new $15/hour minimum wage for city workers and employees of city contractors, along with Fair Workweek legislation.  

As legislators in Harrisburg work to complete their budget considerations, we hope they’ll include raising the state minimum wage as part of their final budget, not only to help hardworking parents trying in vain to lift their families out of poverty, but also to boost the fortunes of local economies.

Please sign on and share this petition urging legislators not to start their summer vacations until they do their part to help families struggling to put food on their tables.