Reform praises minimum wage hike

A Reform leader called the increase in the federal minimum wage a “victory for America’s hard working families.” Rabbi David Saperstein, the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said the wage hike “renews the hopes of all Americans that someday soon working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, will no longer mean living in poverty.” An amendment to the emergency supplemental war spending bill passed by Congress this week raised the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour, to be put into effect in three stages over the course of the next two years. President Bush has said he will sign the bill. The bill marks the end of the longest period in history that America has gone without an increase in the minimum wage since it was established in 1938.