February 7, 2021

WHAT: The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival joins forces with One Fair Wage and SEIU on Monday, Feb. 8, for a Raise the Wage Moral Monday. We demand an immediate increase in the minimum wage to $15/hour for all workers; an end to the subminimum wage for tipped workers; and expansion of union rights for all. We call on President Biden, Sen. Schumer and all elected officials to stand hard and fast on this campaign promise to lift up poor and low-wage workers. 

WHO: One Fair Wage President Saru Jayaraman, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry and Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign. Also, essential workers will share stories about why both raising the wage to $15 an hour and ending the subminimum wage for tipped workers are critically needed. The PPC co-chairs joined a virtual briefing on Friday to release a report outlining how tipped workers and the sub-minimum wage is a legacy of slavery. View the report here and the briefing here.

WHEN: Noon ET / 9am PT Monday, Feb. 8. 

WHERE: Online at https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/livestream/. In addition, One Fair Wage will hold socially distanced rallies in Washington, D.C., New York City, Denver, Phoenix, Chicago and San Francisco. 

WHY: The demand for $15/hour is as big a fight as the one for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Corporations got the trillions of dollars that they demanded in COVID relief — and some dollars that they didn’t even seek  — while our people were dying and heading toward economic ruin even before the pandemic. Sixty-two million people make less than $15/hour, including over 40% of Black workers, making this THE issue in the fight for both racial and economic equity. No one can claim to want to address racial equity while backing down on $15/hour now for all workers. It is critical for essential workers who are crying out to politicians to respect us, protect us and pay us. It is key to addressing child poverty and all poverty. It is paramount in the lives of all poor and low-income workers of all races and ethnicities. Poor and low-income people, who showed their power at the ballot box in the last election, can change political will because a moral, constitutional agenda is a sound economic agenda as well as we lay out in our 14 Policy Priorities to Heal the Nation: A Moral and Economic Agenda for the first 100 days. 

**The event will be ASL interpreted and open captioned. 

BACKGROUND: Nationally, more than 140 million poor and low-income people live in the United States, or 43% of the country’s population, and that was before the COVID-19 pandemic. The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, with organizing committees in 45 states, is building a moral fusion movement to address the five interlocking injustices of systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy and militarism and a distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism. Our demands are reflected in our Jubilee Platform.  

For additional information: poorpeoplescampaign.org  https://youtu.be/PmOjcUoDhEs

Twitter: @unitethepoor / Instagram: @poorpeoplescampaign / Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/ANewPPC

CONTACT:
Martha Waggoner: [email protected]  | 919-295-0802