Nonpartisan Report Found More Than 550,000 Louisianians Would Benefit from Increase to $10.10 an Hour

BATON ROUGE — Sen. David Vitter today voted to block a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, legislation that would benefit more than half a million Louisiana workers, according to a recent report by the nonpartisan Louisiana Budget Project.

“Today’s vote by David Vitter is yet another example of how he has consistently put partisan politics ahead of what’s best for Louisiana,” said Louisiana Democratic Party Executive Director Stephen Handwerk. “Whether it’s voting against equal pay legislation or blocking a bill that would mean an immediate raise for nearly 360,000 Louisianians, Vitter has shown time and time again that he is on the side of corporate special interests — not Louisiana families.”

Today Vitter voted with nearly all of his Senate Republican colleagues to block the Minimum Wage Fairness Act.

Earlier this month Vitter joined with Senate Republicans to block the Paycheck Fairness Act.

The Louisiana Budget Project report found that almost 360,000 Louisiana workers would be directly impacted by a minimum wage hike to $10.10 an hour, and more than 190,000 workers would be indirectly impacted. The report also found that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would create an estimated 3,300 jobs and pump $689 million into the state’s economy.

In Louisiana, nearly 62 percent of the workers who would benefit from an increased minimum wage are women. More than 300,000 Louisiana children live in a household with at least one parent that would be positively impacted by a minimum wage of $10.10 an hour.

For more on Vitter’s record of voting against Louisiana’s working families, visit www.vitterforgovernor.com.

 

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