Kerry proposes raising minimum wage to $7 per hour by 2007

Friday, June 18th 2004, 6:08 am

By: News On 6

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) _ Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Friday proposed raising the federal minimum wage to $7 an hour by 2007, which he contended would benefit working women more than any other group.

The proposal, which calls for phasing in the $1.85 increase, mirrors Democratic-sponsored plans proposed in the House and Senate.

Kerry said three out of four women who would benefit from the increase are adults. Such a boost in the minimum wage, which has not changed from $5.15 since 1997, would provide a family with enough money to buy 10 months of groceries or pay for eight months of rent, he said.

Inflation has eroded the value of the last increase in minimum wage, Kerry said. ``In very real terms, this only serves to keep many hardworking Americans from getting ahead and saving for the future,'' his campaign said in a statement.

Eileen Appelbaum, a Rutgers University labor economist who supports the proposal, said raising the minimum wage by $1.85 would translate into more than $3,800 a year in additional income for a minimum wage earner.

``If you're down at the bottom of the labor market, an increase of $3,800 a year can make a real difference to families struggling to put food on the table, struggling to pay the rent,'' Appelbaum said in a conference call organized by the Kerry campaign.

Kerry's proposal, scheduled to be announced at Northern Virginia Community College, returns his attention to fiscal policies as the economy is rebounding under President Bush. With casualties mounting in Iraq and Bush's justification for war under increasing question, his Democratic challenger has sharpened his criticism of the war after having struggled to explain his position during the primary campaign .

In the midst of a two-week campaign swing focusing on ways to improve the financial standing of American families, Kerry cites statistics like rising bankruptcy rates and dropping wages as a share of national income. Yet he can no longer point to rising unemployment as the main evidence that Bush's economic leadership is failing. So far this year, 1.2 million jobs have been created, although there is still a net job loss of more than 1 million jobs since Bush took office.

Kerry said Thursday that more jobs will be created during the coming months, but ``my candidacy is not based on the fact that we've lost a job here or there.'' He said the campaign will continue based on the need for better health care, education, environmental protections and foreign policy.

``What will not go away is the impact of the loss of moral authority of the United States in the world because of what's happened in the prisons in Iraq and because of the abuses that we've seen and the failure of this president to show that he can lead our country with the truth,'' he said.

The Sept. 11 commission's found this week that Saddam Hussein did not have ties to al-Qaida, disputing a central justification Bush used for invading Iraq and toppling the former Iraqi regime.

Bush disputed the commission and continued to maintain the former Iraqi leader had numerous contacts with al-Qaida. But Kerry said the report shows Bush ``rushed to war for a purpose that it now turns out is not supported by the facts.''

``This administration took its eye off of al-Qaida, took its eye off of the real war on terror in Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan and transferred it for reasons of its own to Iraq,'' Kerry said. ``And the American people are paying billions of dollars now because of that decision. And most importantly, American families and American soldiers are paying the highest price of all.''

Kerry was criticized during the last 18 months for failing to articulate a clear position on Iraq. He voted to give the president authority to go to war, but then criticized him for doing so without more diplomacy.

The nuance left some voters scratching their heads about whether Kerry was for or against the war. Democrats who were upset with Kerry's vote for the war said he had no standing to criticize it.

Republicans say Kerry tries to have it both ways. Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said Kerry ``has constantly displayed indecision and vacillation when it comes to the war on terror.''

``His comments today is another example of John Kerry trying to exploit the war on terror for political gain and to contradict his previous statements,'' Schmidt said Thursday.