My dad worked in a furniture factory for 45 years, the same one, unairconditioned, and my mom worked part-time jobs while raising four kids. Growing up in a working-class family, I saw what it was like for my parents to struggle and have to make the most of every paycheck. This is why I’ve spent my career as a legal aid lawyer helping working people hit hard by the last economic crisis, including stopping Wall Street banks from foreclosing on their homes and helping them make ends meet. That’s why in the state senate I helped pass legislation to assist working families-like expanding health care coverage and increasing the minimum wage. We need to make this state and this recovery work for working people, that’s why I’ll reject and return the pay raise Chris Sununu took, while simultaneously vetoing a minimum wage, until working people get the minimum wage increase they deserve.

While Chris Sununu is leaving working families behind, my plan, New Hampshire Workers Bill of Rights, will help all working families in the Granite State. It also includes the right to a safe workplace, by putting in place worker whistleblower protections to make sure workplaces are safe, protected, and workers cannot be punished for voicing safety concerns. It includes the right to a modernized unemployment system so that Granite Staters who are laid off can get their benefits faster. It includes the right to paid family and medical leave insurance so that workers, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, aren’t put in the impossible position of choosing between their job and taking care of a newborn, their children, or a sick loved one. And it includes the right to paid sick days, because over 200,000 workers in New Hampshire have no access to paid sick days, forcing them to make impossible choices about their health or their paycheck.

My plan also starts by doing what Chris Sununu has refused to do, which is raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour so that every worker can earn a living wage. Raising the minimum wage is a commonsense policy that will help Granite Staters, including our frontline workers who have been doing whatever it takes during COVID, no matter the risk. In fact, more than 100,000 workers in New Hampshire would directly benefit from the $12 minimum wage that Chris Sununu vetoed while simultaneously taking a $31,000 pay increase for himself. And the $7.25 wage hasn’t seen an increase in more than 10 years while the cost of living has increased 18 percent.

Finally, like Donald Trump, Chris Sununu has been a disaster for working families. Both Trump and Sununu oppose raising the minimum wage, and while blocking progress for working people, Sununu and Trump have given tax breaks and special treatment to their family businesses. Sununu has called raising the minimum wage “dumb” and “disastrous.” Senior Trump economic advisor Larry Kudlow shares Sununu’s view and called raising the minimum wage a “terrible idea.” And Sununu even called paid family leave a “vacation”. It’s no wonder Sununu calls himself a “Trump guy through and through”.

New Hampshire’s workers and working families deserve a governor who not only understands their struggles, but who will champion legislation that ensures they no longer have to struggle. Raising the minimum wage, modernizing our unemployment system, and making sure families don’t have to choose between a paycheck and taking care of a newborn or sick loved one are common sense and practical policies that I will support to help our workers, our economy, and our state thrive.

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