Congratulations Congress -- 74 Million Rural Americans Benefit from Raise in Minimum Wage

With Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid leading the way, Democrats celebrated their success in raising the minimum wage ... promises given/promises kept!

National minimum wage has been $5.15 per hour since 1997. The raise will occur in three stages:

• $5.85 per hour, beginning 60 days after the bill's enactment. The President signed the bill into law on May 25;
• $6.55 per hour 12 months, or one year, after that sixtieth day; and
• $7.25 per hour 24 months, or two years, after that sixtieth day.

More than 650 economists were joined together in support of the raise, while the Economic Policy Institute reported that "The real value of today’s federal minimum is less than it has been since 1951. Moreover, the ratio of the minimum wage to the average hourly wage of non-supervisory workers is 31%, its lowest level since World War II."

According to William O'Hare at the Carsey Institute, more than 5.5 million people in rural America live in households where someone earns less than $7.25 an hour and 60% of the benefactors of the wage increase live in rural America. Read more at the Carsey Institute's study by O'Hare: "Rural Workers Would Benefi t More Than Urban Workers from an Increase in the Federal Minimum Wage"