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ACORN Celebrates Minimum Wage Increase

27 States and 2.1 Million Workers Affected by Thursday's Raise

WASHINGTON, July 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On Thursday, July 24, ACORN members celebrate the second part of a three-stage federal minimum wage hike takes effect as 27 states across the country will see an increase from $5.85 to $6.55 after ACORN's decades of work on campaigns to increase wages of working people to a living wage. Although the federal government still lags behind 23 states and theDistrict of Columbia, 2.1 million workers will be receiving a boost in pay from this minimum wage hike. Next year the minimum wage will settle at $7.25 unless Congress acts again.

"This wage increase we are celebrating does not go high enough, but the money is nonetheless very real in the pockets of people in our communities who work hard and struggle to work their way up," said Maude Hurd, ACORN National President. "ACORN members and our allies across the country are ready to keep fighting until our nation no longer bears the shame of poverty wages, and our policies keep pace with our moral values."

ACORN and its allies have won high-profile victories in the fight to secure better wages, leading scores of campaigns over the last 15 years to establish local living wage ordinances, and dozens of efforts to raise state minimum wage levels, culminating in eight successful minimum wage ballot initiatives in 2006. ACORN helped lead the fight to get the federal government to raise the minimum wage for the first time in a decade, finally winning in Congress in early 2007.

"We must never again allow our elected representatives to sit by idly while low-wage earners fall behind year after year," said Hurd. "ACORN calls on Congress to index the minimum wage to inflation so that we don't find ourselves stuck at $7.25 in 2018." The minimum wage is a critical piece of the ACORN Working Families Agenda, which also includes affordable health care, foreclosure prevention, paid sick days, and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit.

ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, with over 400,000 member families organized into 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the country. Since 1970, ACORN has taken action and won victories on issues of concern to our members, including better housing for first time homebuyers and tenants, living wages for low-wage workers, more investment in our communities from banks and governments, and better public schools. ACORN -- an acronym for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - should be used on first reference.)

SOURCE Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)

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