From Rep. Bruce Hunter’s newsletter:
A job should be a bridge out of poverty, an opportunity to make a living from work, an opportunity to bring dignity to one’s life. But for about 300,000 Iowans – Iowans who work hard, play by the rules and do what is right – there is no dignity. For those people working at or around Iowa’s minimum wage of only $7.25 an hour there is only poverty.
But if the minimum wage were increased to $12.00 per hour, with annual cost of living increases, about 300,000 Iowans would receive an hourly wage increase. Of the workers who would benefit from the increase …
• 75 percent are adults over the age of 20.
• 58 percent are female.
• 42 percent are full-time workers and another 34 percent work between 20 and 34 hours per week.
* 40 percent of minimum wage earners are the sole breadwinner in their families.
• 20 percent are parents to some 94,000 children.
