minimum wage

On Tuesday, Raise Up Massachusetts, a progressive coalition of labor, community and faith-based organizations, released a statement that celebrated the minimum wage finally reaching $15 as of Jan. 1, 2023 — but simultaneously described that new rate as inadequate.

Even before the pandemic, 140 million Americans were poor or low-income. Now the economy is down 10 million jobs since the pandemic hit, and at least 8 million more of us are living in poverty.

If it’s passed by Congress, President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 relief proposal would do a lot more than fund relief payments and vaccine rollouts. It would also raise the wage floor for all U.S. workers — and give a particularly long overdue raise to restaurant servers, taxi drivers, manicurists, and other tipped workers.

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley is calling for a federal job resolution that would guarantee U.S. residents the right to work well-paying jobs through a New Deal-style program that would employ people in fields ranging from elder and child care to work on federal transit projects.