Congresswoman Cori Bush on $15 Minimum Wage: “Run us our Money”
WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01) appeared on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes to discuss the American Rescue Plan and the fight for a $15 per hour federal minimum wage. Click here to watch and download.
“The American people sent us to Congress with a clear mandate, Chris: do the absolute most we can to provide real relief to everyday people,” said Congresswoman Cori Bush. “True COVID-19 relief means raising the minimum wage to at least $15 per hour, no matter what the Senate parliamentarian says. Run us our money. That's what St. Louis and the country deserve, nothing less.”
A full transcript of the Congresswoman’s interview with Chris Hayes is below.
CHRIS HAYES: Democratic Congresswoman Cori Bush of Missouri knows the challenges of working low-wage jobs as a single mother who raised two kids. Last night she tweeted, “People don't care about keeping the filibuster. People don't care about listening to the parliamentarian. People care about getting the relief they need. Do what it takes to raise the minimum wage to at least $15.”
And Congresswoman Cori Bush of Missouri joins me now. Congresswoman, first, let me start, you're gonna have a vote tonight. I think it'll be your, it'll be your first vote on a major piece of legislation. There's been other legislation, the Equality Act, but this is the biggest thing that you will be voting on. How do you, how do you feel about that? How do you feel about where things stand?
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: I'm ready to get it done. I mean, you know, we've been sitting and waiting. And I know, you know all of these things have to happen first. Tonight, we need to get this done. The American people sent us to Congress with a clear mandate, Chris, do the absolute most we can to provide real relief to everyday people. True COVID-19 relief means raising the minimum wage to at least $15 per hour, no matter what the Senate parliamentarian says. Run us our money. That's what St. Louis and the country deserves. Nothing less.
CHRIS HAYES: You, I mean, you're someone I think you would say, you come from a different background than a lot of folks you’re serving with, and from a different place and have different life experiences. And, you know, I just from your perspective, as someone, I think who is closer to being a low wage worker, trying to make ends meet with kids than a lot of your colleagues, what it would mean for the minimum wage to be raised for those kind of folks?
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: It is the difference between receiving your paycheck after the end of the week or bi-weekly and having money to pay all the bills, or most of the bills versus having money to pay one of the bills and then deciding how much food can I buy? Or do I buy a medication? Or can I buy, you know, what kind of toilet paper? The thing is someone had asked one day they say, ‘Well, you know, how much you know, what about buying milk? Like is that, you know, I hear there's this thing about buying milk.’ It's the difference between somebody going, ‘Where can I go get the $2.50 cent milk from? Or what food pantry can I go to to get my basic needs met?’ And then what do I have to go other places to get? Like this is a real thing. What about shut-offs? You know, I know what it's like to come home every day wondering, ‘will there be a letter, pasted to my door saying 10 days or, you know, pay in 10 days or vacate?’ Will my electricity be off when I make it home? Will there be a note saying that my gas was turned off? You know, if you haven't lived like that, you know, we're talking about $15, Chris. We're not talking about making anybody rich. This is the difference between life and death for people. Look, we're talking about communities also that have lived under decades of disinvestment. They don't care about Senate parliamentary procedures and a filibuster. They care that they can feed their families. They care that the lights are on and that there is heat, that there is water, they care about those things. And we owe that to the American people.
CHRIS HAYES: You're in a state, obviously, your district is heavily Democratic, but the state you're in, Missouri, has trended quite conservative over the last few election cycles, particularly at the statewide level. It's striking to me that in 2018, your state, again, a state that is moving to the right, voted by referendum to raise the minimum wage in Missouri, above the federal, not to $15, but I think to $12 in a sort of incremental fashion. What does that say to you about the politics of this issue, just broadly speaking?
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: It says that people know that they have needs. And it doesn't matter if you have an R or a D, if you don't have any affiliation to politics at all. People know that hunger is real, that the pain of hunger, what your body feels like when it's hungry is real. When you can't go to the store, to the pharmacy and pick up your medication. When you have to make that decision between paying rent and getting your medications. People know that that's a real thing. So they understand that and also, they understand that it's $15 where we really should be, you know, and so we have in Missouri, we've seen progressive issues, you know, pass in our state, but not necessarily very many progressive politicians. So that's where we have to do the education. But $15 -- we got to bring that home.
CHRIS HAYES: Senator Thune, I saw a number of Republicans who, Republicans are, I think the entire Senate caucus opposed to minimum wage. I don't think it would get a single vote either in the House. Maybe I'm mistaken. Senator Thune, who’s the Minority Whip, you know, he was saying I started working bussing tables at the Star Family Restaurant for $1 an hour slowly moved up to cook, the big leagues for a kid like me to earn $6 an hour. Businesses in small towns survive on narrow margins, mandating a $15 minimum wage. Historians have pointed out that $6 in 1979 is like $23 today, but it was interesting to me, he said, kid, because I think there is a conception a lot of people have and a lot of Republicans have sort of fed into that these are all teenagers making the minimum wage, what's your response to that?
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: Not at all. Not at all. We're talking about adults, we're talking about middle-aged adults, we're talking about our elders, you know, and regardless of the age, when I show up to work, and I do a job, pay me my money, pay me a wage that is decent, because the work that I'm doing is decent. If I'm stocking shelves, you want those shelves straight. So you need to pay me a wage to make sure that I can hold my head up high enough and hop up on a ladder to be able to make sure that the products are set up on the shelf right. If I'm cooking your food, make sure that I'm mentally okay and physically okay to be able to cook your food because you want to eat that right?
You know, so it shouldn't matter, the age of the person. And then what he said is unbelievable, his words. Because the thing is, if, you know, I've worked for $5.35 an hour, I remember getting 10 cent merit raises, not raises, 10 cent merit raises. But you know what? It kept me in a position of poverty. It kept me hurting. Why do we want others to have to go through that? I don't. And the fact that I don't make that money now. I don't want others to go through it. Like what type of elected official says, ‘I have it. You know, you have to fix it yourself.’ No, no, no, no. Take care of your people. And that’s what I'm doing. That's what St. Louis deserves. That's what this country deserves.
CHRIS HAYES: Alright, Congresswoman Cori Bush, who will be voting on this relief package, the House version does have the minimum wage increase in it. We'll see how that ends up. Thank you so much of your time. I really, really appreciate it.
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: Thanks for having me.
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Congresswoman Cori Bush represents Missouri’s First Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. She serves on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. She is also a Deputy Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a proud member of the Congressional Black Caucus. She is a registered nurse, single mother, and an ordained pastor. Following the murder of Michael Brown Jr. by a now-terminated Ferguson police officer, she became a civil rights activist and community organizer fighting for justice for Black lives on the streets of Missouri and across the country.