Russ Carnahan Quotes

Too many jobs don't pay enough to get by, let alone get ahead.

How can anyone live off of minimum wage?

The sad fact is that in communities such as mine, the minimum wage is the maximum wage.

Anyone who's tried to pay a heating bill, fill a prescription, or simply buy groceries knows all too well that the current minimum wage does not cut the mustard.

No family gets rich from earning the minimum wage. In fact, the current minimum wage does not even lift a family out of poverty.

Today a minimum wage earner has to work a day and a half just to pay for a full tank of gas. That is simply shameful.

It is unacceptable that someone can work full time - and work hard - and not be able to lift themselves out of poverty.

America's vast population of working poor can only get so poor before even Walmart is out of reach.

Americans shouldn't have to hold down two or three jobs to make ends meet.

I was very poor and I was a waitress, and it's hard to be a poor waitress in New York.

Thousands of Ohio families are going deeper and deeper in debt just trying to pay their heating bills, fill prescriptions, and buy groceries. The current minimum wage is simply not enough.

The current minimum wage simply is not supporting Ohio's working families.

It is shameful that millions of Americans are suffering the economic injustice of working a full-time job and earning a wage that leaves them below the poverty line.

The bottom line is that five million low-income Americans working full time for minimum wage, deserve a raise.

Coronavirus has exposed for all what many of us already knew - some of our most important workers have barely enough to live on, and millions are condemned to financial insecurity, inequality and food poverty.

Even if we raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour, it's still hard to prosper on that wage.

The minimum wage has not kept pace with rising costs. This legislation is overdue and will help families that are struggling in this harsh economy.

The average family earning minimum wage spends 141 percent of their income struggling to meet basic needs - food, shelter, clothing.

My mother saved our home with a minimum wage job. But in the 1960s, a minimum wage job would support a family of three above the poverty line. Not today. Not even close. I understood right then that people can work hard, they can play by the rules, and they can still take a hard smack.

People can't live on $7.50 an hour.

Thirteen thousand dollars a year is not enough to raise a family. That's not enough to pay your bills and save for their future. That's barely enough to provide for even the most basic needs.

Every day, families in the United States face the stark choice between a roof over their heads and food on the table. Buying health insurance, owning a home, and saving up for college are just too far out of their reach.

No person can maximize the American Dream on the minimum wage.

In New Orleans, where I'm from, the average household income, with two working parents, two kids, a dog and a little fence is $16,000 a year, so $15,000 for a movie sounds pretty good.

Very few people can afford to be poor.