Jere Downs

LCJ

A group of laborers and lawmakers — including U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth — called for raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 at a rally in downtown Louisville on Monday.

"Minimum wage work is miserable work," said Pam Newman, 33, a former minimum wage worker who has begun a new candle making business. "You never get off the struggle bus, a bus that keeps going to the exact same stops."

Supporters of raising the federal minimum wage said at Monday's rally that doing so would free workers from some of the stress of struggling to buy food, pay rent, put gas in the tank and pay utilities.

Yarmuth, D-Louisville, a co-sponsor of the Fair Minimum Wage Act — which would raise the wage to $10.10 over several years — said the measure has failed to draw crucial GOP support.

"A livable wage will end taxpayer-funded corporate welfare," Yarmuth said at the morning rally that drew about 50 people at the Romano Mazzoli Federal Building at Sixth Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Place. "If you put in 40 hours a week, you should be able to put food on the table everyday."

This fall, Metro Louisville Council member Attica Scott said she expects to introduce an ordinance that would mandate raising the minimum wage for Louisville employers.

The federal legislation would increase the minimum wage to $8.20 per hour almost immediately, $9.15 an hour a year later, and $10.10 an hour after another year.

Every three years thereafter, the minimum wage would automatically increase in step with inflation at a rate determined by the U.S. Department of Labor.

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