February 24, 2021

MORRIS COUNTY AFRO-AMERICAN NEWS

MORRIS COUNTY AFRO-AMERICAN NEWS

Civil Rights

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Let’s turn up the pressure on Joe Manchin

With Democrats controlling Congress and the White House, we have an incredible chance to enact a $15 minimum wage and lift millions of women out of poverty as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the economy. But all 50 Senate Democrats must vote together for women and families.

So, when Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin declared that $15 was too high for his state of West Virginia–the poorest in the country next to Mississippi–we were incensed, and West Virginia UltraViolet members pushed back hard.1

Ultraviolet members in West Virginia and other activists called. They emailed. They bombarded Manchin on social media with video tales of how they work more than 50, 60, even 100 hours a week but still can’t make ends meet.

The pressure is starting to work: Manchin agreed to meet with West Virginia progressives and hear their concerns. But, after meeting with constituents whose lives would be dramatically improved by raising the minimum wage, Manchin remained unmoved. So, working with partners in West Virginia, turning up the heat.

As a senator representing West Virginia, of all places, Joe Manchin should know better. It may be one of the poorest states in the country, but it’s far from the cheapest place to live.

In fact, 43% of the state’s workers earn less than the living wage needed to provide for their families. More than half of West Virginians who live in poverty are women.

Tipped workers–who are nearly two-thirds women–are disproportionately impacted, earning even less under a wage system that’s a direct legacy of slavery. So too are frontline and essential workers.

Raising the minimum wage to $15, including for tipped workers, would cut the state’s poverty rate by 42% and give more than 300,000 state workers a much-needed raise.

1. Manchin says he doesn’t support raising minimum wage to $15 per hour, The Hill, February 2, 2021

2. These states are the cheapest places to live in America in 2019, CNBC, July 10, 2019

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