It is beyond time that hard working Hoosiers got a pay raise! It is not dramatic to say that $7.25 is a starvation wage. The misconception is that minimum wage workers are high school kids who are just starting out, but that's not the case at all. There are many folks working a minimum wage job, most times two or three minimum wage jobs, just to feed and take care of their families. 

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     I'm calling to raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour gradually over the next 3 years. I have talked to multiple small businesses in Fort Wayne who have confirmed that they are already paying at or just shy of $12 per hour. In many cases, it's not the small businesses that aren't taking care of their employees, it's the large national and multi-national corporations that complain that raising the minimum wage is going to put them out of business. 

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     We must also come alongside small businesses, to make sure that raising the minimum wage doesn't cripple their growing businesses. I would propose tax breaks and incentives based upon the number of employees that a business hires and the rate of pay of those employees. The more employees that businesses hire, and the better they pay those employees, the more generous the tax benefits. 

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