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Life on $206 A Week

Life at the minimum wage means $206 a week. It means swallowing your dreams and working just to survive. It means not being able to buy shoes for your children...putting in 10 hours a day just to pay for a room for the night...facing the hard fact that you can't afford college...not knowing where your family's next meal will come from.

All this week, ACORN and the AFL-CIO are hosting 7 Days @ Minimum Wage (http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/9pqWsA51aqje/), a video blog (vlog) featuring low-wage workers struggling to get by and actress-comedienne Roseanne Barr. Each day there's a new story--and a reminder of one great reason to hope: If we all turn out to vote Nov. 7, we can raise the minimum wage.

The only thing that has blocked an increase in the federal minimum wage--from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour--has been the unwillingness of Republican congressional leaders to allow a clean vote on the legislation with no poison pills and no strings attached.

Minimum wage workers have been waiting a decade for a nationwide raise that can help lift their families out of poverty. But the Republican leadership has pulled every kind of cynical political ploy imaginable to block a minimum wage increase--even holding it hostage to budget-busting tax breaks for the 8,200 wealthiest estates in America. Minimum wage workers should not have to get in line behind Paris Hilton and the Wal-Mart heirs to receive the long-overdue pay increase they rightly deserve. In this election, we must elect members of Congress who will give America a raise.

Your votes Nov. 7 will determine whether life will get a bit more livable for minimum wage workers.

Don't miss 7 Days @ Minimum Wage
(http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/9pqWsA51aqje/)--and don't miss your chance to give hard-working, low-wage workers a raise. Sign the pledge now at the link below:

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/raisethewagepledge/8n3ugezv7xj53j?

Thank you for voting for working families.

In solidarity,

Working Families e-Activist Network, AFL-CIO