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By Kenny Stancil, staff writer
"It is despicable and unacceptable that there is not unanimous support among Democrats in Congress for a $15 minimum wage," said Rep. Jamaal Bowman.
After eight members of the Democratic caucus joined all 50 Republicans in the U.S. Senate on Friday to kill an amendment reattaching a $15 minimum wage provision to the Senate's coronavirus relief package, progressives pointed out that nearly every single one of the lawmakers who voted against the raise for low-paid workers nationwide is a millionaire.
"It is baffling that any member of the U.S. Senate could look at the crisis this country is enduring and decide that tens of millions of low-income workers should not get a raise."
Morris Pearl, Patriotic Millionaires
"Today's vote on Senator Sanders' $15 minimum wage amendment is incredibly sad," Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires and author of the forthcoming book Tax the Rich, said in a statement.
"$15 per hour is the bare minimum anyone in this country needs to survive," Pearl continued, "and it is baffling that any member of the U.S. Senate, much less a number of Democrats, could look at the crisis this country is enduring and decide that tens of millions of low-income workers, including millions of frontline workers who put their lives on the line every day in the midst of a global pandemic, should not get a raise."
Nina Turner, co-chair of Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign and current candidate running for election to the U.S. House in Ohio's 11th district, responded to the vote by tweeting: "every single one of the senators who voted against raising the minimum wage is a millionaire."
Journalist Ken Klippenstein shared the net worth, according to the most recent financial disclosures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, of the eight Democrats who voted against Sanders' (I-Vt.) $15 minimum wage amendment.
While her present net worth may trail that of other lawmakers, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), was especially enthusiastic about denying a raise to millions of poorly paid U.S. workers. With her $174,000 annual salary, Sinema is well on her way to joining her wealthier colleagues in the millionaire ranks.
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