Georgia legislators: It is beyond time for a livable wage. Increase Georgia's minimum wage to $10.10 an hour to adjust for inflation.
Why is this important?
As the costs of housing, food, health care and other basic necessities continue to rise dramatically, Georgia’s minimum wage has stalled at its 2002 level of just $5.15 an hour -- the lowest of any state in the country.
Georgia has one of the highest percentages of minimum wage workers in the country -- 6.4 percent of Georgia workers earn minimum wage vs. 4.7 percent of workers nationally. And about half of all minimum-wage workers nationwide are over the age of 24. In Georgia, a minimum-wage worker at the federal rate of $7.25 an hour would have to work 79 hours per week in order to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent.
A majority of Georgia voters support raising the minimum wage, which would benefit hundreds of thousands of Georgia workers, their children and their families, while giving a huge boost to local economies.
