Salt of the Earth: Catholic Charities backs better wages

Social justice news
March 2001

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Catholic Charities backs better wages
Catholic Charities USA has offered enthusiastic support for a new bill to increase the hourly minimum wage from $5.15 to to $6.65. The service advocacy organization argues a higher minimum wage would help poor working families escape poverty.

"There is a dire need in this country for a minimum wage increase," says Sharon Daly, vice president for social policy at Catholic Charities USA. "Catholic Charities agencies are being inundated with requests for emergency assistance from individuals and families that would otherwise go hungry, homeless, or both because their low wages cannot be stretched to cover the basics such as rent, food, heat, medicine, or clothing."

The bill, introduced in February by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Representative David Bonior (D-MI), would raise the minimum wage $1.50 in three stages. By 2003, full-time minimum wage workers would earn an additional $3,120 per year. People now working for minimum wage generally earn only around $800 a month. That's an amount that doesn't get an average family far in most large American cities, where rents can range between $700 to $1,000 a month for even single-bedroom apartments.

"Many of the people who would be helped by this bill are moving from welfare to work," Daly says. "Working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, those paid the current minimum wage earn only $10,712 per year, more than $3,400 below the federal poverty level for a family of three."

Nearly 12 million workers—9.9 percent of the workforce—will benefit from an increase in the minimum wage, reports Catholic Charities. In 1999 the agency saw a 22-percent increase in the use of its emergency services, including a 32-percent increase in emergency food assistance.

"No one who works for a living should have to live in poverty," Daly says. —Anne Graber

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