INSTITUTE INDEX: Taking the Fight for $15 to the heart of the old Confederacy

By Sue Sturgis / August 10, 2016

(Photo of a 2015 Fight for $15 rally in Atlanta by Hotlanta Voyeur via Flickr.)

Date on which the first-ever Fight for $15 Convention will kick off in Richmond, Virginia — the capital of the former Confederacy, which was chosen by organizers to highlight the overlap between racial and economic justice: 8/12/2016

Date on which convention participants will take part in a march on monuments to the Confederacy led by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP and the social justice group Repairers of the Breach: 8/13/2016

Number of workers expected to take part in that march: 10,000

Since the Fight for $15 movement began four years ago, estimated number of U.S. workers who have gotten significant raises because of its victories: almost 20 million

Percent of U.S. workers who currently earn less than $15 an hour: 42

Percent of black workers who do: more than 50

Percent of Latino workers: more than 60

Annual cost to U.S. taxpayers of low wages and lack of benefits in the fast-food industry alone: at least $3.8 billion

Number of states with laws setting minimum hourly wages above the federal standard of $7.25: 29

Number of those states that are in the South: 3*

Number of states that don't have a state minimum wage: 5

Number of those states that are in the South: 5**

Date on which fast-food workers and civil rights groups, citing “racial animus,” filed a federal lawsuit against Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R) for signing into law a bill that bars cities from adopting minimum wage ordinance as majority-black Birmingham did: 4/28/2016

Level to which Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton supports gradually raising the hourly minimum wage: $15

Level to which Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump supports raising it: $10

Among low-wage workers who are not currently registered to vote, percent who say they would definitely or probably register if there were a candidate supporting a $15 minimum hourly wage and union rights: 45

* Arkansas ($8), Florida ($8.05) and West Virginia ($8.75).
** Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee.

(Click on figure to go to source.)

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