President Barack Obama at a recent event in Connecticut roused a crowd of students and working professionals with a speech on raising the minimum wage in the state and nationwide.
A pep rally held at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain invited four governors, including Gov. Dannel Malloy, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts and Peter Shumlin of Vermont, who are looking to increase their local minimums.
Obama said increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would help students, women, senior citizens and working-class Americans. The current minimum wage in Connecticut is $8.70 an hour and the national minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.
“The nature of today”™s economy with technology and globalization means that there are folks at the top who are doing better than ever, but average wages have barely budged,” Obama said. “Average incomes have not gone up. Too many Americans are working harder than ever just to keep up.”
The biggest barrier for an increase in the federal minimum wage exists between Congress and his administration, he said.
“Nearly three in four Americans, about half of all Republicans, support raising the minimum wage,” Obama said. “The problem is, Republicans in Congress oppose raising the minimum wage.”
He then introduced a Bridgeport business owner Doug, who is the president of Wade”™s Dairy. Doug runs a family-owned business, which his great-grandfather Frank started in 1893, that pays his workers above the minimum wage, Obama said.
“But he goes a step further than that,” Obama said. “He writes editorials, he talks to fellow business leaders, he meets with elected officials to make the case for a higher minimum wage for everybody. And keep in mind, Doug spent most of his life as a registered Republican. This is not about politics. This is about common sense.”
Obama also said he was aiming to make higher education more affordable. Obama said his administration has been offering millions of young people a chance to cap their monthly student loan payments at 10 percent of their income.
“The bottom line though is whether it”™s technical training, community college, or four-year university, no young person should be priced out of a higher education,” Obama said.
