WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) has cosponsored a bill to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in five years. The Minimum Wage Fairness Act would increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour over three years, boosting the earnings of more than 78,000 Delawareans and lifting more than 11,000 Delaware families out of poverty.
The bill would provide for automatic annual increases to the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation and would also gradually raise the minimum wage for tipped workers — which currently stands at just $2.13 an hour — for the first time in more than 20 years.
“While our economy has grown over the last four years, minimum-wage workers have been left behind,” Senator Coons said. “The purchasing power of the minimum wage has declined by more than 30 percent over the last four decades, leaving millions of full-time workers and their families living in poverty. If we want to continue on the path to sustainable, long-term growth, we have to expand economic participation by helping workers climb out of poverty and ensuring access to a fair, living wage into the future. Raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do for our economy, our businesses, and our middle class, and I hope my colleagues in the Senate will come together to get it done this spring.”
The minimum wage today pays just $15,000 per year — $3,000 below the poverty level for a family of three. The Minimum Wage Fairness Act would boost the annual minimum wage to $21,000, lifting millions of families above the poverty line.
Nationally, the Minimum Wage Fairness Act would increase the wages of more than 30 million American workers, more than half of whom are women. In Delaware, where women make up nearly two-thirds of all minimum wage workers, 47,000 women would receive a raise, helping to close the state’s longstanding gender wage gap.
In January 2014, the Delaware legislature passed — and Governor Markell signed into law — legislation raising the minimum wage in Delaware to $8.25 per hour over two years. Beginning in June 2014, the state’s hourly minimum wage will go up 50 cents to $7.75, increasing again to $8.25 in June 2015.