Barber, co-chair of the Poor Folks’s Marketing campaign, plans to affix Sanders to “make the ethical case for elevating wages.”
On the heels of launching an effort to boost the federal minimal wage to $17 an hour over 5 years, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday introduced upcoming rallies to demand the pay hike in three states, the place he shall be joined by Bishop William Barber II.
Barber — Repairers of the Breach president, Poor Folks’s Marketing campaign co-chair, and founding director of the Middle for Public Theology and Public Coverage at Yale Divinity Faculty — plans to affix Sanders (I-Vt.) to “make the ethical case for elevating wages.”
Sanders and Barber are first headed to Durham, North Carolina, the place they’re set to be joined by Democratic Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam — who labored for the senator’s 2016 presidential marketing campaign — for a 7:00 pm ET rally on the Hayti Heritage Middle on June 1.
The pair then plans to go to the Henderson A. Johnson Memorial Gymnasium at Fisk College in Nashville, Tennessee at 7:00 pm CT on June 2. State Rep. Justin Jones (D-52) — who gained nationwide consideration earlier this yr for being expelled by GOP legislators over a protest demanding gun management, solely to be promptly reinstated by Nashville’s Metropolitan Council — is anticipated to affix them.
A 3rd rally hosted by the Worldwide Longshoremen’s Affiliation Native 1422 at their union corridor in Charleston, South Carolina is scheduled for 4:00 pm ET on June 3. State Rep. Wendell Gilliard (D-111) plans to affix the occasion, in partnership with the South Carolina AFL-CIO.
A longtime advocate of accelerating the U.S. minimal wage, Sanders and labor leaders introduced their push for $17 per hour earlier this month. Although a number of states have set larger minimums, the federal charge of $7.25 hasn’t changed since 2009.
“At a time of huge and rising revenue and wealth inequality and record-breaking company income, we should rise up for working households — a lot of whom are struggling each day to offer a minimal lifestyle for his or her households,” Sanders — who chairs the Senate Well being, Training, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee — stated Monday.
“There are too many Individuals attempting to outlive and lift households on $9, $10, or $12 an hour. It can’t be finished. This injustice should finish,” he added. “Low-income staff want a pay increase and the American folks need them to get that increase.”
The progressive suppose tank Knowledge for Progress final week released polling outcomes that present 76% of probably voters throughout celebration strains would help a $17 hourly minimal wage — and 74% would help $20.
The survey, carried out in early Might, additionally revealed that every one probably voters imagine Individuals have to earn $26.20 per hour “to have an honest high quality of life (that’s, the flexibility to afford primary requirements corresponding to groceries, hire or mortgage funds, transportation, and different important payments with out struggling).”
$26 per hour: The wage voters suppose it’s good to earn to have an honest high quality of life within the U.S.
$7.25 per hour: The present federal minimal wage. https://t.co/OtkYnMcP7N
— abby springs (@abby_springs) May 24, 2023
Plans for the rally sequence come after researchers on the College of California, Berkeley kicked off Might by putting out a working paper that exhibits vital minimal wage will increase can have constructive results on earnings and employment — countering claims from company lobbying teams that oppose such pay hikes.
Whereas Sanders has the ability to make sure his panel takes up the difficulty, laws to extend the minimal wage nationwide is unlikely to succeed in President Joe Biden’s desk, given the Republican-controlled Home of Representatives and a Senate that also contains Democrats who partnered with the GOP in 2021 to dam a measure that may have mandated a $15 hourly charge.
