Why does congress keep raising their wages, but fail to raise minimum wage?

Question

I want you to realize that I made 5.15 an hour for 2 years at a peice of sh*t job. That's what they paid and it's hard to find jobs. It IS NOT the responsibility of the states to raise minimum wage, however they can take it into their own hands. It's hard to even make enough money to even pay for gas at 5.15 an hour.


Feel better now?

Answer 1

The simple answer is: because they can! Something happens to people who go to Washington DC that makes them greedy. They (usually) are making less money than they would if they were CEOs or private-practice lawyers, so they keep increasing their salaries. They seem to forget that the average working person does not get nearly the benefits that they do, yet must pay for all of the "pork" in the spending budgets. Their salaries must be kept separate from the minimum wage, though: The minimum wage was put in place to maintain a floor for people beginning to work. It was considered a starting point. The minimum wage was never intended to be the "living wage" that we hear about from those who want it raised.

Answer 2

The congress gave themselves a 2% raise. They are trying to raise federal minimum raise from $5.15 to $7.50. minimum raise is usually set by state congress. 14 states have higher minimums than the $7.50. You may have better luck with your state congress. Big money helps all Federal Congressmen & Senators get into office & they are not in favor of increasing minimum raise. This is not a left or right issue, both Democrats & Republicans have refused to increase this for over 10 years - that would be Clinton & Bush.

Answer 3

I think that members of Congress are making plenty, but raising the minimum wage doesn't help us. Employers still have the same amount of money to pay out in wages. A raise in the minimum wage just means that money will be concentrated on fewer employees. Now if they raised the minimum wage and lower taxes on corporations, that might help.

Answer 4

Well, look at it this way: there are all of 535 people in Congress, so their pay raises don't amount to a hill of beans. On the other hand, there are several millions of people making the minimum wage, and if all of them got raises, we'd be in a real sorry state, wouldn't we?

Feel better now?

Answer 5

Because states have the responsibility of setting minimum wage.

The cost of living in some states is more than the cost of living in other states. States should make that decision. Not congress.

Answer 6

Because in order to raise the minimum wage we must keep in mind how many business will go under because they cannot afford to pay the new wage. Nobody seems to remember that part though.

Answer 7

Big business pays them under the table not to the feds haven't raised the min. wage but some states have WI. was one of them and then only after certain cities were going to raise min. wage in that city

Answer 8

Well i mean if you had the choice to set yorui own salary .. would you not raise it ?

Answer 9

because there is nothing we can do about it until we start another revolution.

"Why would I want to trade 1 tyrant 3000 miles away for 3000 tyrants 1 mile away?"

Answer 10

Because we are making their pockets fatter, therefore they are not thinking about us.