You never know where you might find a volunteer with a clipboard looking for signatures trying to get a voter referendum on the local ballot – like Ed Flanagan in the town of North Pole, Ala.
"I'm out in what's called the North Pole transfer station. This facility has about 50 metal dumpsters arranged in a fenced area. Folks back up and throw their household trash in there. This is a very busy place," he says.
There's no residential trash pick-up there so people have to haul their own. So for Flanagan, it's a great place to do some politicking for the minimum-wage hike that his group hopes to get on the August primary ballot.
Democrats in Congress are pushing to increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour and tie further increases to the cost of living. But there are also ongoing efforts to boost the minimum wage in more than a dozen cities and states, like Alaska.
Activists around the country say it's an issue whose moment has arrived in all states — Democratic or Republican.
Thousands of miles away at an office in Massachusetts, Lew Finfer is with a coalition looking to get a minimum wage hike on the November ballot.
"Something like 700,000 people in Massachusetts who earn between $8 and $10.50 would get a raise, and there would be a billion dollars that would go back into the economy because people would spend it locally," Finfer says.
One of those Massachusetts workers who would benefit is 41-year-old Patty Federico. She makes $9.10 per hour at a movie theater, and she says they won't put her on full-time work.
"Right now with the money that I'm making, it just is a nightmare," she says. "It's not paying the bills. So I am desperately looking for a full-time job."
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