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CEO pay doubled, the minimum wage stayed the same. But Americans still can t agree on a raise.
Ledyard King, Charisse Jones, Paul Davidson and Michael Collins, USA TODAY
Published
11:31 am UTC Apr. 7, 2021
KEYSER, W.Va. – Jackie Hickey Butts remembers the hardscrabble lifestyle she led on $8.75 an hour as a single mother in this bucolic town in West Virginia s eastern panhandle: No car. No television. No extras for her and her five children.
“There’s one month you didn’t pay the water bill. Then you doubled up the next month and then you did the same thing with electric,” said the 49-year-old in-home care worker who has climbed out of poverty but supports a national push for a $15 federal hourly minimum wage. She was willing to juggle expenses, “as long as I had a roof over my kids’ heads.”