CURRENT SIGNERS include • Ben & Jerry's • Eileen Fisher • Stonyfield • Parnassus Investments • &pizza • New Belgium Brewing • Amy's • Dr. Bronner's • Replacements Ltd • Nature's Path • Uncommon Goods • Seventh Generation • Organic Valley • Managed by Q • American Sustainable Business Council • Greater NY Chamber of Commerce • Earth Friendly Products • Amalgamated Bank • Zingerman's • Archi's Acres • AFI Contractors • American Income Life • Logan Ace Hardware • Beanfields Snacks • Lamey Wellehan Shoes • and Over 1,000 MORE • Statement sponsored by Business for a Fair Minimum Wage.

As business owners and executives, we support gradually raising the federal minimum wage to at least $12 by 2020. It’s good for business, customers and our economy. Today’s outdated minimum wage has far less buying power than it had in the 1960s. Stuck since 2009 at $7.25 an hour – just $15,080 a year – the minimum wage impoverishes working families and weakens the consumer spending at the heart of our economy.

Raising the minimum wage makes good business sense. Workers are also customers. Minimum wage increases boost sales at local businesses as workers buy goods and services they could not afford before. And nothing drives job creation more than consumer demand. Businesses also see cost savings from lower employee turnover and benefit from increased productivity, product quality and customer satisfaction. The most rigorous studies of the impact of actual minimum wage increases show they do not cause job loss. Raising the minimum wage will keep more dollars circulating in our local economy and reduce the growing strain on our social safety net caused by inadequate wages.

We support gradually raising the federal minimum wage to at least $12 an hour by 2020, and then adjusting it yearly to increase at the same rate as the median hourly wage. This will restore the lost value of the minimum wage, assure the wage floor does not erode again, and make future increases more predictable.