National Jewish Umbrella Agency Calls for Increasing the Minimum Wage to $15 / Hour
February 11, 2019: Washington, DC -- The Jewish Labor Committee (JLC) has secured the explicit endorsement for the Federal Minimum Wage to be raised to $15/hour from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, at the JCPA's annual conference recently held in Washington, DC. The Jewish Labor Committee is a founding member organization of the JCPA.
The resolution - text below - updated a 2014 resolution that supported an increase in the Federal Minimum Wage to $10.10/hour.
The Jewish Labor Committee prepared the updated resolution, and submitted it with the co-sponsorship of a number of national and local Jewish agencies, including the National Council of Jewish Women, the Rabbinical Assembly (the international association of Conservative rabbis), the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, and the Union for Reform Judaism, plus four local bodies: the Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley (Los Gatos CA), and the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. All are affiliated with the JCPA.
The four-day annual conference, which ran from Feb. 9th through Feb. 12th, drew some 250 professionals and volunteers from across the United States; sessions reflected the range of policy issues being dealt with at the national and local level. JCPA, the national hub of the Jewish community relations network, represents 125 local Jewish community relations councils (JCRCs) and 17 national Jewish agencies, including organizations representing all four major denominations of religious Judaism.