- Kate Feldman
- Protesters join outside Congressman Bill Young's office to rally for a higher minimum wage.
Erica Poinelli earns $7.67 an hour.
The mother of two, 31-year-old Poinelli works at Checkers for minimum wage.
About a year ago, she and her children, one 10 and the other 2, had to move back home with her parents.
“I just couldn’t afford my own place,” she said. “My parents still have to help me out financially.”
Since 2009, the federal minimum wage has sat stagnant at $7.25 an hour. For a full-time worker, that wage is equivalent to $15,080 a year, nearly $7,000 below the poverty line for a family of four.
But Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) is putting forward a bill that would immediately raise the minimum wage to $10.
This article appears in Jul 19-25, 2012.
