America is a country of record-setters. This Saturday we’ll set a new record when we officially hit the longest period since the minimum wage was enacted in 1938 that workers in our country have gone without a raise in the federal minimum wage. Sadly, this is one record America's working families cannot be proud of.

Imagine working full-time, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, and not having enough money to pay rent, put gas in the car and eat. The idea is absurd, but for millions of Americans, it’s real.

Working people have been stretched to the limit and this year, on Election Day, they snapped back. By the millions, voters turned out to change the direction of our country and, in part, to end the blockade by the Republican-led Congress against increasing the minimum wage. Raising it is both an economic and a moral issue.

In every state where the minimum wage was on the November ballot as an initiative, it passed - - in Ohio, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana and Nevada. By huge margins, voters rejected $5.15 an hour. With the addition of these states, 28 states and the District of Columbia now have minimum wage laws above the federal level of $5.15. It’s time to bring everyone up. No one can live, let alone raise a family, on $11,000 a year, which is more than a full time minimum wage worker earns annually.

We are looking forward to working with the new Congress next month to give America’s lowest paid workers the raise they’ve needed for so long. As its first order of business, America’s new leadership would do well to give America’s workers the “clean” – no strings attached -- $2.10 raise they justly deserve.

Contact: Esmeralda Aguilar 202-230-4726 (cell)