Rapid Response: Letter to Congress re: support of Federal minimum wage raise

Dear Friends:

Below is a letter urging the new Congress to pass a long over due minimum wage increase early in the January Congressional session. We hope you will agree to sign the letter and urge others to do so also. Our goal is to get thousands of signatures from religious leaders, clergy and lay, across the country.

Please send back your reply not later than January 2nd. We want to present the letter to all members of Congress on January 8th. Please send your reply by e-mail to Katy Heins at letjusticerollohio@yahoo.com or by fax at 513 579 0674.

We are aware that the turn around on this request is very fast, particularly during this busy holiday season. We hope, however, that given the issue’s urgency, you will be able to respond.

Two requests:

Please sign the letter yourself and send it back to us.

Please circulate the letter among your networks for additional signatures.

In responding, Please send us:

Your name:_________________________________

Title:______________________________________

Religious body, Organization___________________

City and State:_______________________________

Your stated affiliation is for identity purposes only. We do not assume that your affiliated body has endorsed the letter, only you as an individual.

Thank you for your continuing commitment in support of low wage workers and families.

Dear Members of Congress,

We, the undersigned religious leaders, in partnership with the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign, call on the 110th Congress to raise the minimum wage! The Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign is a nonpartisan coalition of more than 80 faith, community and labor organizations working to raise the minimum wage at the state and federal level. In 2006 we played a major role in increasing the minimum wage throughout the country at the state level.

We strongly support the Miller/Kennedy bill that increases the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour. Furthermore, we strongly oppose any attempts to add provisions to the bill. We urge you to vote for this clean minimum wage bill.

The Prophet Amos proclaims, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream� (5:24, NRSV). We are morally outraged by the number of people living in poverty in the United States, and believe that now is the time to give hard-working low-wage workers a raise and take the first step toward a true living wage for America’s workers.

It has been nearly 10 years since the last federal increase in the minimum wage, and low-wage workers urgently need a raise. A minimum wage employee – making $5.15 an hour, working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, earns about $10,700 a year – about $6,000 below the federal poverty line for a family of three. This situation is unconscionable and immoral, as the wealth of our nation continues to be built on the backs of the working poor. Working poor families in America are struggling to meet the rising costs of health care, gasoline and housing, and $5.15 an hour is simply not enough.

Minimum wage legislation in the past has stalled in Congress because of attempts to attach unrelated provisions such as reducing the minimum wage of tip workers, rolling back over-time protections, or tying the minimum wage to a repeal of the estate tax. In addition, such provisions are harmful to the very workers that a minimum wage increase is intended to help. The strong victory on all the minimum wage ballot initiatives is evidence that there is strong and widespread support from Americans for a prompt, clean minimum wage increase at the federal level.

We appreciate the commitment made by the leadership of the 110th Congress to address the woefully inadequate federal minimum wage. We will continue to raise our voices on behalf of “the least of these� and proclaim that a job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it.

Sincerely,