This Mother’s Day, Let’s Raise the Minimum Wage

This blog post is a part of NWLC’s Mother’s Day 2012 blog series. For all our Mother’s Day posts, please click here.

As you probably know, Mother’s Day is coming up on Sunday. Here at the National Women’s Law Center, we care a lot about mothers – not only our own (although you’re totally awesome, Mom!), but also the millions of women across the country who are trying to raise kids, care for their own aging parents, climb the career ladder, save for retirement, and protect their health – often all at the same time, and often with the odds stacked against them. My work in the Family Economic Security program focuses on advancing policies that help low-income women and their families make ends meet, and if you’ve seen any of my blog posts lately, you’ll know one policy change that could really help working moms is an increase in the minimum wage. 

Women are nearly two-thirds of workers making the federal minimum wage or less. Many of them are mothers struggling to support their families on earnings of less than $15,000 a year for full time work. And on top of their tough jobs – waiting tables, caring for children and homebound seniors, cleaning homes and offices – many face the nearly impossible task of finding affordable care for their children while they’re at work, often without a single paid sick day to fall back on in an emergency.

The Rebuild America Act, introduced by Senator Harkin (D-IA) in late March, would help address several challenges that low-income working moms face by raising the minimum wage, including the minimum cash wage for tipped workers; expanding funding for child care assistance; and guaranteeing paid sick days. Specifically, the Act would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.80 per hour – meaning a woman working full time at the minimum wage would earn enough to lift a family of three out of poverty – and raise the tipped wage from the (shockingly low) current level of $2.13 per hour to 70 percent of the federal minimum wage. In addition, the bill would make quality child care more accessible and affordable for low-income families and enable workers to earn up to seven paid sick days a year to use if they are ill or need to provide care for a sick child or aged parent.

By raising the minimum wage, the Rebuild America Act would also tackle another obstacle many mothers face: the gender wage gap. In 2010, women working full time, year round were paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. Because women are the majority of minimum wage workers, increasing the minimum wage would particularly boost women’s earnings and help to narrow the gap.  What’s more, the additional dollars flowing into the economy as a result of those higher wages would spur growth and create an estimated 100,000 new jobs.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, chaired by Senator Harkin, is holding a hearing tomorrow at 10 am titled, “Beyond Mother’s Day: Helping the Middle Class Balance Work and Family.” I’m looking forward to hearing Kim Ortiz, a working mother of two, share her story and talk about the policies that would help her and her family (and I’m guessing a higher minimum wage will be on her list). I hope you’ll tune in, too!