WASHINGTON, D.C. – As workers in Ohio and across the county participate in a “National Day of Action” today to urge elected officials to support higher wages and better benefits, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) called for passage of legislation that would support workers and promote economic opportunity for all Americans by raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. In Ohio, an estimated 45 percent of workers earn less than $15 per hour. During a news conference call today, Brown was joined by Artheta Peters, a home health care worker from Cleveland who earns less than $9.00 per hour without benefits or paid leave.

“No one in this country who works full time should be forced to live in poverty,” Brown said. “But for many workers, it feels as though the harder and longer they work, the less they have to show for it. Raising the minimum wage would help grow our middle class, and grow our economy. When workers have more money in their pockets, they have more money to spend at local businesses. And when workers are paid fairly, businesses have less employee turnover and increase their productivity. I hope my colleagues in Washington will hear the voices of the hundreds of thousands of workers taking action today around the country, demanding fair pay for their labor.”

Brown is a cosponsor of the Pay Workers a Living Wage Act, which would phase in a $15 minimum wage by 2020 over five gradual raises. After 2020, the minimum wage would be indexed to the median hourly wage and the tipped minimum wage would be gradually eliminated.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the federal minimum wage in 2014 had only 76 percent of the purchasing power that the 1968 minimum wage had, when the rate peaked. In 1968, the minimum wage equaled 33 percent of average net hourly productivity and in 2014 that number had fallen to 13 percent.

Brown supports better wages and benefits for all American workers including legislation to ensure equal pay for equal work, grant paid sick leave for workers, give workers more stable schedules, protect pregnant workers from discrimination, and increase the minimum wage.

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