You've listened to me. Now I want to listen to you. [View all]

[Alan Grayson]

What are elections all about?

Money?

No, elections are not about money; they’re about lives. The lives that people live, and what we can do to make them better.

I met with minimum-wage workers in Tampa a few weeks ago. Before that, I had never taken an official position on a $15-an-hour minimum wage. But listening to them, I was left with no choice. They can’t survive on $7.25, and I couldn’t, either.

Now, if you have something to say on this, I’d like to hear from you. You share your story. If it’s a good one, it will help drive us all toward social justice.

Help inspire the movement to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, by sharing your story about working at a low-wage job, today >>

I’ll share mine:

To pay my way through college, I had to work cleaning my classmates’ toilets, and then as a night watchman on the midnight shift. When I finished making the rounds outdoors, plodding through snow-covered streets in the dark, my hands and feet felt as cold as blocks of ice. My pay was less than $4 an hour.

In a sense, I was lucky. I just had to support myself. My aunt had it worse. In 1930, she worked for low wages in a department store, supporting her father, her mother and four siblings – all unemployed. One job, seven mouths to feed. My grandfather was so desperate that he used to go to the dump every day, searching for something that he could salvage and sell.

In my case, I didn’t struggle to get by on that low wage because I was lazy, or because I was stupid, or because I had a taste for champagne (or even ripple). I struggled to survive because it wasn’t a living wage. And today, being paid only $1200 a month, before taxes (a full-time job at the minimum wage), is not a living wage.

And please don’t tell me that I wouldn’t have had that job if my employer had had to pay me more. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that toilets don’t clean themselves.

I’m fighting alongside progressive icons like Bernie Sanders to raise the minimum to $15 an hour, but now I need your help. Can you take a few minutes to share your story about surviving on low wages?

Courage (and solidarity),

Rep. Alan Grayson
Candidate for U.S. Senate