“Do the math about what a minimum wage brings in, in income. If we don’t send a very clear signal that we’re all in this together, the character of America will change.”

–Hillary Clinton, 4/11/06

In the U.S. Senate


Hillary Clinton fought to tie the minimum wage to future increases in congressional salaries. Hillary Clinton repeatedly introduced the Standing with Minimum Wage Earners Act to bind future salary increases for Congress to mandatory increases in the federal minimum wage. Under the provisions of the legislation, the federal minimum wage would be “automatically increased” by “a percentage equal to the percentage by which the annual rate of pay for Members of Congress increased for such year…” Speaking to the importance of her bill, Senator Clinton said, “We can no longer stand by and regularly give ourselves a pay increase while denying a minimum wage increase to help the more than 7 million men and women working hard across this nation. At a time when working families are struggling to put food on the table, it’s critically important that we here in Washington do something. If Members of Congress need an annual cost of living adjustment, then certainly the lowest-paid members of our society do too.”

Hillary Clinton repeatedly introduced legislation to increase the federal minimum wage. Hillary Clinton’s Standing with Minimum Wage Earners Act of 2006 would have increased the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over two years. Introducing her 2006 bill, Senator Clinton stated: “I ask my colleagues to recognize the moral aspect of this issue. It is simply wrong to pay people a wage that they can barely live on… We should raise the federal minimum wage so that working parents can lift their children out of poverty. It is past time to make this investment in our children and families.” Senator Clinton’s Standing with Minimum Wage Earners Act of 2007 would have increased the federal minimum wage from $5.85 to $9.50 an hour.

Hillary Clinton cosponsored bills to increase the minimum wage five times and consistently voted to support it. Over the course of her time in the U.S. Senate, Hillary Clinton cosponsored bills to raise the federal minimum wage in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007. Senator Clinton opposed Republican efforts to weaken the minimum wage, and she repeatedly backed Democratic efforts to raise it. Although she opposed the Iraq funding bill it was folded into, Clinton cosponsored the original version of the Fair Minimum Wage Act that increased the minimum wage for the first time in ten years, from $5.85 to $7.25 an hour. It was one of the five bills Senator Clinton cosponsored to raise the minimum wage.


As First Lady

In 1996, Hillary Clinton was a vocal supporter of successful efforts to raise the minimum wage. The San Jose Mercury News reported in 1996, “The argument for increasing the minimum wage – which first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton endorsed Saturday – is simple and direct: The wage has not been increased since 1987 and those earning minimum wage receive no benefits or vacation.” And as she wrote in “It Takes a Village,” released earlier that year, “There are additional actions we can take, through our government, to preserve our country’s promise of opportunity for all. We can raise the minimum wage, which is nearing a forty-year low; two out of five minimum-wage earners are the sole breadwinners in their households, and many recent studies show that a modest increase does not cost jobs.” In his 2007 Hillary Clinton biography “A Woman in Charge,” Carl Bernstein wrote that, “In the ten weeks since the [1996] election, she had been working with administration officials to find ways of saving vital government services and programs that Gingrich and the Republican majority were determined to eliminate in the new session of Congress. They included legal aid for the poor, educational assistance incentives, important Medicare and Medicaid benefits, pension protection, and the minimum wage.” The minimum wage was successfully increased in August of 1996.

In 1999, Hillary and Ted Kennedy worked together to push for a minimum wage increase. As she said at a White House event with Ted Kennedy in September 1999,“America can afford to raise the minimum wage. The last time it was raised in 1996, 10 million Americans got a raise and the economy continued to create jobs at an unprecedented pace. Now raising the minimum wage is certainly an American issue and a human issue, but it is particularly a woman’s issue. It is also a children’s issue and a family issue. So I would hope that every member of Congress—the next time they visit a parent in a nursing home, sit down in a restaurant for a meal, see someone cleaning their office, or know what goes on in so many other settings where people work hard every day—would want every American to share in this kind of prosperity, and would want to raise the minimum wage.” Unfortunately, their push was unsuccessful.
Today

Hillary argues that a minimum wage increase will drive our economy by closing the wage gap between men and women. At a recent speech before the United Methodist Women Assembly, &feature=youtu.be&t=32m34s Hillary Clinton made the case for an increase in the minimum wage saying, “Twenty years ago, American women made 72 cents on the dollar; today, it’s still not equal. Women hold a majority of lower-wage jobs in our country, and nearly three-quarters of all jobs that rely on tips, like waiters, and bartenders, and hair stylists, which pay even less than the average hourly work wage. Now, holding back women is not right, but it’s also not smart. No country can truly thrive by denying the contributions of any of its people, let alone, half of its people…
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But if we took a different approach, women can drive economic recovery and growth, they can lift up themselves, their families, and countries, if we ensure equal pay for equal work, if we raise the minimum wage…”