In a stunning display of cruelty, Congress in late June rejected a bill to increase the minimum wage, which has not risen in nine years. But low-paid workers and their allies haven’t given up the fight.

Frustrated by the federal government’s refusal to act, activists across the country are taking matters into their own hands. If they gather enough signatures, proposals to pay workers a “living wage” will show up this fall on ballots in Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, Montana, Arkansas, and Nevada. Many are expected to pass.

Eighteen states and over 100 cities and counties already have minimum wages higher than the federal level of $5.15. Recently, the most dramatic victory came when a coalition of unions and community organizations in Santa Fe, New Mexico persuaded the city council to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 per hour this January. It will rise to $10.50 in 2008.

Christina Olivas, a food prep cook and mother in Santa Fe, saw her wages grow from $5.75 per hour to $9.50 under the new law. “Before, I had two jobs,” she told the New York Times. “Now, I go in at 9 and leave at 5. I have time in the morning and the afternoon to be with my family.”

Polls show Americans overwhelmingly support raising the national minimum wage. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center asked voters whether they would back a modest increase; 86% said yes. In red state Florida, the same voters that helped reelect George W. Bush also passed a wage hike by 71%.

But instead of boosting pay for the most vulnerable workers, Congress has effectively lowered it by letting the minimum wage stagnate since 1997 while prices for housing, healthcare, and other necessities continue to rise. At the same time, Congress voted themselves $30,000 in raises since 1997, bringing their pay to $165,200 per year with automatic cost-of-living-adjustments each year.

In the 1960s and ‘70s, a person working full-time at the minimum wage could keep a family of three above the federal poverty line. Today, that same worker – usually a woman, young person, or person of color — makes about $9600 yearly after taxes, not enough to keep even one person out of poverty. Low wages leave millions of Americans hungry every year; one-third of clients in the nation’s food banks and soup kitchens are working either full- or part-time.

Voters’ outrage at the situation could be a political goldmine for the Democrats. But backed by the same corporations that pay poverty wages, they have failed to fight for any real change. Only now, in a bid to win support in the upcoming congressional elections, are the Democrats calling for an increase – and only a meager one at that. The Senate bill, sponsored by Edward Kennedy, would have taken two years to raise the minimum to $7.25 — still under the poverty line for a family of three.

Local grassroots campaigns have improved the standard of living for thousands of workers. But they have not gone far enough, giving raises that fall short of the cost of living or only affecting a minority of workers at businesses that contract with the city.

What is a living wage? A living wage provides enough money to cover all basic expenses: food, rent, healthcare, transportation, education, and quality child care.

Socialist Alternative calls for a federal minimum wage of $12.50 per hour, or $500 per week, indexed to inflation. Such a raise would exert an upward pressure on wages, benefiting all workers, not just those who make the minimum.

Businesses argue they simply can’t afford such a wage. But there is plenty of waste in the American economy to pay for a minimum wage increase.

Compensation for CEOs climbed 71% since 1997, the last time the minimum wage was increased. If Congress had raised the minimum wage at the same rate, it would be $8.80 today. In 2005, Yahoo’s Terry Semel made $231 million, and ExxonMobil declared the largest single-year profits ever made by one corporation, $36 billion.

For small family businesses that can prove wage increases would put them out of business, the federal government should provide subsidies.

Raising the standard of living for our lowest-paid workers should be a top national priority. We can’t depend on the big business–backed politicians of the two major parties. Instead, we have to organize a mass grassroots movement to demand that bosses “give America a raise.”

Letting millions of hard-working people live in poverty in the richest society in the history of the world? There’s no excuse.