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Minumum Wage Workers in Virginia
Raising the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour would benefit more than 150,000 workers in Virginia.
Minimum wage employees in Virginia who work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, earn $10,700 a year, $5,400 below the poverty line for a family of three.
Ten percent of Virginians are in poverty today—740,000 people—163,000 more than when President Bush first took office. The low level of the minimum wage is a key part of the problem.
A worker in Virginia earning minimum wage must work 125 hours per week to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment. That would require working nearly 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. In fact, the current minimum wage doesn’t provide enough income to enable minimum wage workers to afford adequate housing in any area of this country.
It’s a myth that increasing the minimum wage causes unemployment. In the four years after the 1997 minimum wage increase, Virginia experienced great economic growth. Nearly 265,000 new jobs were created. Unemployment dropped from 4.1 percent in 1997 to 2.4 percent in 2000.
An increase in the federal minimum wage to $7.25 would help lift tens of thousands of hardworking Virginia out of poverty and toward more secure and more productive lives.
No one who works full time should have to live in poverty.
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