Kerry suggests raising minimum wage to $7/hour

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Sen. John Kerry on Friday called for raising the minimum wage to $7 an hour by 2007, saying the value of today's hourly minimum is at a 55-year low.

The Massachusetts Democrat, who is expected to be his party's presidential nominee, said a $1.85 increase in the $5.15 minimum wage could lift millions of people out of poverty.

"We are today . . . in the year 2004 living with a minimum wage that is lower in value than it's been at any time since 1949 when Harry Truman was president," Kerry told supporters at Northern Virginia Community College in this suburb of the nation's capital.

"That's unacceptable, that's wrong and I'm going to change that with your help," he said.

Kerry based his statement on a report released Friday by generally pro-labor economists aiding his campaign who are affiliated with the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, as well as Harvard and Princeton Universities and the University of California, Berkeley.

The study found that the current minimum wage is just one-third of the nation's average hourly wage of about $15.45, the lowest level since the Truman administration. And the study concluded that a minimum wage of $7 an hour would be enough — barely — to boost a low-income family of four out of poverty.

It also found that women would be 61 percent of the direct beneficiaries of an increase in the minimum wage even though they make up fewer than half the work force. The reason is that women hold a higher percentage of minimum wage jobs than men.

Kerry's advocacy of a higher minimum wage came amid his campaign's two-week focus on economic themes. Kerry has been proposing policy changes he has said would create a stronger economy and better living standards for working Americans.

He also has found fault with President Bush on economic issues, citing in particular what he says is Bush's preference for helping the wealthy at the expense of middle-class and low-income Americans.

Kerry kept up the criticism Friday. "Don't you think," he asked, " ... that if a president can go out and fight for four years to provide over a trillion dollars in tax cuts to the wealthiest people in America, we can fight for a few months to raise the minimum wage for the poorest people in America?"