You've listened to me. Now I want to listen to you.

[Alan Grayson]

What are elections all about?

Money?

No, elections are not about money; they’re about lives. The lives that people live, and what we can do to make them better.

I met with minimum-wage workers in Tampa a few weeks ago. Before that, I had never taken an official position on a $15-an-hour minimum wage. But listening to them, I was left with no choice. They can’t survive on $7.25, and I couldn’t, either.

Now, if you have something to say on this, I’d like to hear from you. You share your story. If it’s a good one, it will help drive us all toward social justice.

Help inspire the movement to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, by sharing your story about working at a low-wage job, today >>

I’ll share mine:

To pay my way through college, I had to work cleaning my classmates’ toilets, and then as a night watchman on the midnight shift. When I finished making the rounds outdoors, plodding through snow-covered streets in the dark, my hands and feet felt as cold as blocks of ice. My pay was less than $4 an hour.

In a sense, I was lucky. I just had to support myself. My aunt had it worse. In 1930, she worked for low wages in a department store, supporting her father, her mother and four siblings – all unemployed. One job, seven mouths to feed. My grandfather was so desperate that he used to go to the dump every day, searching for something that he could salvage and sell.

In my case, I didn’t struggle to get by on that low wage because I was lazy, or because I was stupid, or because I had a taste for champagne (or even ripple). I struggled to survive because it wasn’t a living wage. And today, being paid only $1200 a month, before taxes (a full-time job at the minimum wage), is not a living wage.

And please don’t tell me that I wouldn’t have had that job if my employer had had to pay me more. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that toilets don’t clean themselves.

I’m fighting alongside progressive icons like Bernie Sanders to raise the minimum to $15 an hour, but now I need your help. Can you take a few minutes to share your story about surviving on low wages?

Courage (and solidarity),

Rep. Alan Grayson
Candidate for U.S. Senate

[MADem]

1. Sorry. Can't support this guy. No, no, and NO.

Not after how he treated the mother of his children, after taking up in a romance with a Big Pharma lobbyist. Who he then slid into the candidacy for his CONGRESSIONAL seat--when his chief of staff expected to run for that position with his backing--talk about betrayal.

There are times when it's better to not be a "fighter." For the sake of your kids, if nothing else.

And that offshore hedge fund business doesn't inspire me, either.

Yelling and screaming and getting dramatic is theater. Where's the legislation?

[Brother Buzz]

2. 482 posts....

yet you have not responded to one question posted by a DUer. I suggest you engage in a dialog and demonstrate that YOU are actually listening. Just an idea.

[shraby]

3. I'm a little older than you and would have like to go to college.

Moved to where there was one, but on a dollar an hour, it was an impossible dream. That was the going wage out of high school then. After paying rent, telephone and food there was nothing left to save for college.
Never did get there, got married, moved to where there was no local college and no places of employment had children and that was that.
A town of 250 with 2 grocery stores, 2 garages leaves no place to work.

[bigwillq]

4. Your time has come and gone, Alan.

I would never vote for you.