First the Democrats will have to learn what a budget is.
Via WFB
A slew of prominent Democrats will spend the next week on a minimum wage budget as part of the Live the Wage campaign that is being orchestrated by cash-heavy astroturf groups.
Live the Wage is sponsored by more than 60 liberal organizations, labor unions, and other Democratic interest groups. Participants are asked to live on $77 for one week, claiming that is the average budget for someone earning the current minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Brad Woodhouse, president of labor-funded front group Americans United for Change, called on Congress specifically to take the challenge before debating a potential 40 percent minimum wage hike.
“To the members of Congress who draw a six-figure government salary and say $7.25 an hour is a livable wage, I say walk the walk,” Woodhouse said in a statement announcing the campaign. “Live the wage before refusing to raise the wage. These tone deaf members might just change their tune if they had a little perspective.”
Woodhouse’s invitation has been met with enthusiasm by Democrats supportive of the $10.10 wage proposed in the Senate. Illinois Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky took up the challenge in order to stand “in solidarity with hard-working families who are trying to make ends meet,” according to the release.
Michael Saltsman, research director of the Employment Policies Institute, said that the congressmen were responding to an astroturf effort, rather than genuine grassroots push for wage hikes. He said that the grand gesture of “living on the wage” fails to address the majority of academic studies that have found that raising wages for low skilled workers cuts job openings and opportunities.