Marcy Kaptur Quotes

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.

How can anyone live off of minimum wage?

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.

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 working poor is a growing population in this country.

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

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

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

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

In reality, most of America's poor work hard, often in two or more jobs.

Today, the Federal minimum wage purchases less than it has at any point in the last 50 years. Let me repeat: The Federal minimum wage purchases less than it has at any point in the last 50 years.

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

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

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

The minimum wage is important for many nations

It's wrong that so many hardworking people - people working full-time, or even multiple jobs - need public assistance just to survive.

The people at the bottom who are working but working at relatively low wages need some help.

The 'Welfare Reform and Work' Bill does nothing to address low wages, or underemployment, and I haven't even got started on how it undermines the provision of affordable housing.

There's a lot of journalism about poverty, but sometimes it just helps to see that there's a real person who becomes a real mom, who is working with unsustainable wages that could eventually destroy her.

We need to do more to help the men and women across the country who are working hard but still struggling to make ends meet due to low wages and high healthcare costs.

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.

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

People can't live on $7.50 an hour.

President Obama has made a minimum wage increase a focal point of his economic agenda.