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My priorities are a fair trade policy in this country, increasing the minimum wage, going after the drug companies for the way that they charge and their whole pricing structure that have put absolutely amazing drugs out of reach for so many Americans.
Free market economists frequently see minimum wage legislation as mere political intervention. However, there are decent economic theories which show that, under certain circumstances, minimum wages can be beneficial, as it makes workers more productive.
Donald Trump has shown no interest in working toward increasing the minimum wage, no interest in doing anything but immigrant baiting, no interest in doing anything but filling the swamp with a band of billionaires who are simply trying to help the wealthy.
I envisage there being absolutely no regulation whatsoever - no minimum wage, no maternity or paternity rights, no unfair dismissal rights, no pension rights - for the smallest companies that are trying to get off the ground, in order to give them a chance.
The most important lesson to take away from allowing the minimum wage and unemployment benefit data to talk is that abstract notions of what is right, good and just should be examined from a concrete, operational point of view. A dose of reality is most edifying.
I eat excellent bread, clean meat, good crisp veggies, organic fruits and nice wine and cheese. It is one of the things I am truly grateful for. I'm not kidding. You can't ask a single mother of three working two jobs for minimum wage to eat that way. I am lucky.
We'd certainly have paid leave already by now, we'd have equal pay, we'd have a living minimum wage - a lot of things would change having that diversity of opinion in Washington. We certainly wouldn't be debating whether women should have access to birth control.
It has now been over 7 years since Congress last raised the minimum wage to its current level of $5.15 per hour. Since that last increase, Congress's failure to adjust the wage for inflation has reduced the purchasing power of the minimum wage to record low levels.
Massachusetts led the nation passing the first state minimum wage a century ago in June 1912, and with passage of an $11 state minimum wage ... will be leading the nation again with a wage floor that is good for business, good for customers and good for our economy.
People will say 'how can you have a plane when your workers are on minimum wage?' I said 'but I don't set the minimum wage.' If the minimum wage would be the living wage, then the Government who set the rules should set it at the living wage. That's how I look at it.
I thought I was answering a question that I had heard that was about increasing the minimum wage - would I consider that. So let me just go on record and say this: I am not for decreasing the minimum wage. I did not say that and that is not something I would consider.
I spent my 20s earning minimum wage decorating cakes for a living. But one day, I looked in the mirror and realized I wanted more, for me and my people. I saw too many Native Americans struggling, and I realized we should have a voice in who our elected officials are.
For food service industry and retail, I'm for the minimum wage being increased to at least $12. Not for manufacturing. Software and robotics are going to revolutionize manufacturing in the next 10 years. In the meantime, we have to compete with overseas manufacturing.
Minimum wage law is the 'People's Fed.' Tie minimum wage to money supply. If there is pushback against this idea, then shut down the Fed and its ability to distort the economy, penalizing labor, or make the Fed's distortions available to all businesses and all workers.
The American people want to raise the minimum wage. Every poll tells us that. That bill will not get to the floor of the Senate. The American people want to ask the rich to pay more in taxes. But the legislation that will get to the floor is tax breaks for billionaires.
Teddy Roosevelt supported a progressive income tax. If I am sitting pretty and you've got a waitress who is making minimum wage plus tips, and I can afford it and she can't, what's the big deal for me to say, 'I'm going to pay a little bit more'? That is neighborliness.
The first job I ever had was at a pool-liner-manufacturing plant. Minimum wage was $4.25, and that's what I was making. It was this huge, hot, un-air-conditioned factory staffed with all women and me. This is in Georgia, during the summertime, so it was pretty ridiculous.
Fixing a broken immigration system. Protecting our kids from gun violence. Equal pay for equal work, paid leave, raising the minimum wage. All these things still matter to hardworking families; they are still the right thing to do; and I will not let up until they get done.
During Seattle's successful campaign for a $15 an hour minimum wage, our opponents would sometimes roll their eyes and snort, 'If $15 is so good, why not $50?' It was a straw man argument: Nobody was proposing a $50 minimum wage; it would have been too high, and we said so.
If the opponents of an increase in the minimum wage were correct, then every time you fly to Seattle, you've got to bring a bagged lunch because there shouldn't be any restaurants because they should have all have gone out of business as a result of raising the minimum wage.
It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label.
The most insidious thing about trickle-down economics is not the claim that if the rich get richer, everyone is better off. It is the claim made by those who oppose any increase in the minimum wage that if the poor get richer, that will be bad for the economy. This is nonsense.
Raising the minimum wage represents a substantial financial burden for employers, particularly start-ups, early stage companies, and family-owned businesses. In response, business owners would be forced to either lay off workers or raise prices to offset the rise in labor costs.
You can't take a coal miner making $95,000 a year, the only work in these parts where you can support a family without having to hold down three jobs at once... and tell them, 'You can make minimum wage,' or, 'We can give you job training for jobs that don't exist in West Virginia.'
Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 will benefit about 28 million workers across the country. And it will help businesses, too - raising the wage will put more money in people's pockets, which they will pump back into the economy by spending it on goods and services in their communities.
Over the last 10 years a huge amount has been achieved in getting people into work. Measures such as the New Deal, tax credits, the minimum wage and improved childcare have brought about record numbers of people in work, a number that is still rising despite the global economic slowdown.
Going to a movie is a two-hour experience; at $7.50 for a ticket, you are valuing your time at far less than the minimum wage. If you don't understand the film, don't leave. If you understand it all too well and hate it, get out of your seat and walk up the aisle. You will feel empowered.
It is no small thing for an American to be able to go into a fast-food restaurant and to buy a double cheeseburger, fries, and a large Coke for a price equal to less than an hour of labor at the minimum wage - indeed, in the long sweep of history, this represents a remarkable achievement.
On balance, I am a supporter of the minimum wage going up. We've got to be very careful what we wish for because some employers - and there could be a lot of them - will be scared away from hiring new people or creating incremental hours for part-time people as a result of that wage going up.
My mom worked at McDonald's, and she decided she wanted to make more money, so she got into the management program at McDonald's. And that's how you move up the chain. It's not by demanding that minimum wage is raised; it's by actually acquiring the skills. That's the way that people get ahead in life.
When we talk about the kind of folks whose lives will be made better by raising the minimum wage, we're not talking about a couple teenagers earning extra spending money to supplement their allowance. We're talking about providers and breadwinners. Working Americans with bills to pay and mouths to feed.
Especially for the young and the lowest-skilled, minimum wage becomes a toll that prevents many from entering the work force and gaining the skills that can make a low income or middle class worker a high income worker. This is so obvious that one wonders why liberals keep championing the minimum wage cause.
The NHS was hard to deliver, so was the minimum wage. It's time now - we need to have a proper conversation about how much is the individual cost, how much is the burden that we're all going to share together, and how much are we going to put on older adults now versus a future system like national insurance.
I want to applaud those workers rallying to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. I believe strongly that a great nation will not survive when so few have so much and so many have so little. Every worker in America should be given respect, dignity and the wages and benefits they need to take care of their family.
My mother raised me herself, along with my six younger siblings, in Cleveland, and life wasn't easy even in the best of times. At age 42, she died, and it fell on me, then aged 22 and working minimum wage, to take care of all of us. At the time, I was newly married with a baby son. And I was deeply afraid for our future.
If the price of a burger goes up 5 cents, and the minimum wage that you have received is going up from $7.25 to $15 an hour - and there have been a number of studies that document just how much the price of a burger might go up if you increase the minimum wage. You match the costs, and the benefits far outweigh the costs.
The person earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 isn't going out to eat at restaurants. They're not taking piano lessons. They're not going to the gym or the yoga studio. They're not sending mom flowers on Mother's day. What good is this person in the economy? If you raise it to $15 an hour, they're doing all of those things.
I was on the committee that helped raise the minimum wage here in Seattle. I introduced a statewide bill to raise the minimum wage in Washington state my first year in the state senate, and I really believe that raising the federal minimum wage, while not the answer to everything, addresses a lot of the issues at the very bottom.
Out of all my friends, I believe I'm the only kid whose dad made us work to cut rebars; we laid bricks in construction sites and did other real work every summer for minimum wage. Our dad said that it's important in the future that when we tell people to dig a hole, that you personally know how long it will take to dig that hole.
I have not heard almost anybody suggest that raising the minimum wage to the level we have in Vermont has been an impediment to our economy which is doing reasonably well ... If somebody is going to work that person has got to receive at least a wage that they can go out and live with dignity on. That's an extremely important point.
The answers to feeding hungry children is not fewer dollars to feed hungry children, it's to do more. It is to raise the minimum wage. It is to increase, not dismantle, the earned income tax credit. It is to make college more affordable for more middle class families, not more expensive. These are the things that grow our middle class.
Standing athwart ineffective, feel-good legislation shouting, 'Stop!' is seen as a betrayal of those struggling to get their footing on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. Yet raising the minimum wage hacks the lowest rungs off the ladder altogether. But economic logic doesn't wash with liberals who are intent on inflaming class warfare.
When you work extra, you should be paid extra. That's what the Fair Labor Standards Act said. And I've met so many people who are working 60-70 hours a week, and they are effectively working 20 hours for free because they are making a little bit above the minimum wage, because the 2004 regulation enables employers to do that. That's not fair.
If you go from $7 to $15 in a very short period of time, potentially that could have a negative effect on some economies because that is a very big jump. And you're saying to businesses that employ a large number of minimum wage workers, your payroll is basically going to double. That could have a negative impact. It would have to be studied.
But can we please stop insisting that if low-wage workers earn a little bit more, unemployment will skyrocket and the economy will collapse? There is no evidence for it. The most insidious thing about trickle-down economics is not the claim that if the rich get richer, everyone is better off. It is the claim made by those who oppose any increase in the minimum wage that if the poor get richer, that will be bad for the economy. This is nonsense.