Congressman Brendan Boyle Cosponsors Legislation to Raise Federal Minimum Wage to $12.00 by the Year 2020

WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Brendan Boyle (D-PA-13) is helping to lead the fight to give hardworking Americans a long-overdue increase to the Federal minimum wage. Today, Congressman Boyle signed on as an original cosponsor of the Raise the Wage Act to raise the Federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $12.00 by 2020. The bill, introduced in both the House and Senate, would also gradually eliminate the subminimum tipped wage system and index the Federal minimum wage to keep pace with the rising median wage.

"I am proud to stand with the hardworking Americans in my district and across the country to advocate for this increase in pay," said Congressman Brendan Boyle. "I've said this before, and I'll say it again until it no longer holds true: ‘no one who works full time should have to live in poverty.' The Raise the Wage Act will make sure those who work hard earn enough to get them above the poverty line. Raising the minimum wage will grant these hard-working Americans some financial independence, and they will no longer have to rely on the estimated $152.8 billion that the federal government has to pay out each year to supplement inadequate paychecks through public assistance programs like SNAP."

In Pennsylvania, 1,481,000 workers will directly benefit from raising the minimum wage to $12.00. Of those nearly 1.5 million workers, 880,000 are female and 254,000 are single mothers. In 2007, the Democratic-led Congress passed legislation to phase-in an increase in the Federal minimum wage to $7.25 by 2009. Since that time, the minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation or growth in the median wage, resulting in low-wage workers continuing to fall behind. In fact, the real value of today's minimum wage is less than it was in 1956.

Under the Raise the Wage Act, the Federal minimum wage would start to rise almost immediately. Beginning January 2016 or three months after the date of enactment of the Act, the Federal minimum wage would increase by $0.75 to $8.00 per hour, followed by $1.00 per hour increases every year until it reaches $12.00. Starting in 2021, the Federal minimum wage would keep pace with rising wages overall through automatic annual increases to keep the ratio of the minimum wage constant with the median wage.