Kaine Joins Other Dems In An Effort To Increase Federal Minimum Wage

WINCHESTER — Tabitha Diaz and her children will likely wake up in her van the morning of Mother’s Day.

Making slightly more than minimum wage, she says she is unable to find affordable housing.

But a federal bill co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine , D-Va., could help Diaz and people in similar circumstances.

Kaine  is one of 32 Democratic senators to join a bill sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., called Raise the Wage Act, that would raise the federal minimum wage in increments, getting it to $12 by 2020.

It has been assigned to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The minimum wage in Virginia is $7.25, which is the same as the federal minimum wage, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s website, dol.gov.

In states where the minimum wage is higher than the federal one, the greater wage must be paid, according to the website.

The $12 by 2020 was the consensus of the bill’s sponsors, Kaine  said in a Friday phone interview. After 2020, the minimum wage would be indexed to median wages.

“I don’t think somebody should work full time and be below the poverty level,” Kaine  said.

There are nearly 790,000 Virginians working for minimum wage, he said.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the 2015 poverty guidelines are $11,770 a year for a single person, $15,930 for a two-person household, $20,090 for a three-person household and $24,250 for a four-person one.

Someone working full time and earning $7.25 an hour would gross $15,080 a year.

“My main goal is to really push the value of hard work,” Kaine  said. “People who work full time for this minimum wage shouldn’t be below the poverty level.”

He discounted the idea that raising the minimum wage would be detrimental to small businesses.

People at the lower end of the wage scale tend to spend a higher proportion of their income on disposable-income purchases, Kaine  said.

“I concluded there is an economic benefit to this because it puts more purchasing power in the economy and that gives the customers of small businesses more money to spend,” he said.

Congress has a tradition of setting a minimum wage and then not dealing with it for a long time, before stepping in again, Kaine  said. The last time the federal minimum wage was raised was in 2009.

“My real motive on this is trying to have a working wage that at least gets people’s fingernails up over the poverty level,” Kaine  said.

Diaz isn’t sure how she’ll be able to pull herself and her children out of the hole they’re in.

The 30-year-old moved to Virginia from Ohio two years ago after leaving the husband she says abused her. She has two of their children, and he has the older two.

Diaz and her boyfriend, who is gone much of the time because he’s an over-the-road trucker, are expecting a daughter next month.

When she was still married, she stayed home with the kids because her ex-husband made enough money to allow that.

“But, I got out of the relationship because he was really abusive,” Diaz says.

She has been working at McDonald’s in Kernstown since January, making $7.50 an hour.

After taxes, her biweekly paycheck is about $450. While she does get food stamps, Diaz says social services workers told her she makes too much gross income to receive temporary assistance to help her get an apartment.

She pays $140 a week for daycare for her 3- and 4-year-old sons, plus $204 a month for her van, and $90 for its insurance.

Diaz parks her van “anywhere I can that I don’t think I’m going to get caught.”

“If it gets really, really cold, then I ask my boyfriend’s mom if I can stay at her place,” Diaz says.

But she is reluctant to do that because the family isn’t on the mom’s lease, and Diaz is afraid she’ll get her in trouble.

“Obviously, [living in a van with her children] is horrible,” Diaz says. “I’m keeping my head up, and I keep asking God to point me in the right direction, but I don’t see how I’m going to get myself out of this poverty level if Virginia doesn’t change their minimum wage or get some kind of governmental housing. I want my boys to have a stable home, so it’s heart-wrenching on me as a mother because I want to do better for them.

“It’s just beyond me that a single, pregnant mom with two boys should be living in her van.”

Kaine  doesn’t think the wage bill will pass this year, but has hope for the future.

“What are the odds of succeeding like real soon?” he asked. “Probably not real high. But, I do know this is the way we [in Congress] do minimum wage. 

“The idea is to get it heard in committee. We were able to move this fairly far last year in the Senate, but we didn’t get over the finish line, so we’ve got to try it again.”

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