Holding Minimum Wage Hike Hostage To Tax Cuts Is Shameful

It’s disgraceful that the Senate is still holding the minimum wage hostage to tax cuts for business. There is no reason for weighting down this much-needed – and otherwise straightforward – piece of legislation with yet another round of unwarranted tax breaks for business.

In the last 10 years, the Republican-led Congress provided corporations with a whopping $276 billion in tax cuts and provided small businesses with another $36 billion in dedicated tax breaks, while America’s lowest paid workers have gotten nothing.

Minimum wage workers in this country have waited far too long for a raise – – and it’s shameful that they must now wait even longer because of the Senate’s insistence on business tax giveaways. Even more shameful was the vote by 28 Republican Senators last week to effectively abolish the federal minimum wage.

Last month’s House vote made it clear that our new Congressmen and Congresswomen are listening to what working Americans said last November. Members of the House heard their call for change and took bold and immediate action by voting to increase the minimum wage, no strings attached. Tragically, the Senate has chosen not to hear this message.

The AFL-CIO and our allies plan to turn up the volume on our efforts to pass the clean minimum wage increase low-wage workers justly deserve.