Washington, D.C. - Today U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords backed legislation boosting the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, the latest in a series of sweeping measures enacted by the 110th Congress.
Giffords is a co-sponsor of the bipartisan minimum wage bill, the first pay raise for working Americans in a decade. No\w $5.15 an hour, the minimum wage will go up $2.10 over two years and directly benefit an estimated 13 million workers and their families.
In Arizona, an estimated 148,000 workers will benefit from the hourly wage hike. Nearly 70 percent of those workers are at least 20 years old and almost 60 percent are women.
“This pay raise is long overdue,” said Giffords, the former president and chief executive officer of Tucson's El Campo Tire Inc. “Over the past ten years the minimum wage was stuck at $5.15 an hour, while members of Congress benefited from nearly $32,000 in pay increases. That is unacceptable.”
Giffords noted that consumer costs - from energy to health care to education - have risen by $5,000 annually at the same time American families have seen their real income drop by almost $1,300 since 2000. At its current level, the minimum wage is at its lowest value in more than half a century.
The minimum wage legislation, House Resolution 2, raises the minimum wage to $5.85 two months after enactment. It will go to $6.55 one year later and to $7.25 one year after that. This would mean an additional $4,400 per year for a family of three, equaling 15 months of groceries, or over two years of health care - helping them to keep up with rising costs.
On Tuesday, Giffords voted for House Resolution 1, which implements the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission. On Friday, one day after taking the oath of office as the representative from Arizona's 8th Congressional District, Giffords voted for an overhaul of House ethics rules.
“This is a new era in American government,” she said.