Richard Trumka Quotes

Now all of you know that right now the federal minimum wage is a starvation wage.

The value of the minimum wage shouldn't be eroded, and it has been.

The minimum wage was enacted in 1937 during the Great Depression and it has been increased 16 times. It's a well-established economic policy to help families.

There are very few people at the decision-making table to argue for minimum-wage workers. Very few people.

Wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage earner.

Ten cents a day is adequate pay for a workingman.

The state of Alaska has a minimum wage which is higher than the federal level because our state leaders have made that determination.

Full-time workers earning the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 only earn about $14,500 a year in wages - below the poverty line for a family of two. That's unacceptable.

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.

General well-being is incompatible with lowness of wages.

“A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work,” is as just a demand as governed men ever made of governing; yet in what corner of this planet was that ever realized?

People against the minimum wage say that many workers will lose their jobs. I haven’t ever met a minimum wage worker who didn’t say “Go for it!”

I've been very outspoken that the minimum wage needs to rise.

The minimum wage can play a vital role in lifting hard-working families above the poverty line.

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.

Most arguments for instituting or raising a minimum wage are based on fairness and redistribution. Even if workers are getting a competitive wage, many of us are deeply disturbed that some hard-working families still have very little.

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

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.

The minimum wage now in our country, I think we've set that, so there are a lot of people have benefited from it in our country, but I think we ought to review how much it ought to be, and whether or not we ought to have increases in the minimum wage.

These Americans are among the working poor with full-time jobs earning $5.15 an hour. Millions fall into this boat, even more when you consider that the poverty line has not been adequately adjusted to reflect the true level of poverty in this country.

Congress has not raised the minimum wage since 1997. The minimum wage is now at its lowest level in 50 years adjusted for inflation.

Raising the minimum wage means we have workers paying more in to support the Social Security system.

There can be no distress, there can be no hard times, when labor is well paid. The man who raises his hand against the progress of the workingman raises his hand against prosperity.

If you work, you should not be poor.

living wage