…I intend to lead by example.” – President Obama

“Tonight, I ask more of America’s business leaders to do what you can to raise your employees’ wages. To every mayor, governor, and state legislator in America, I say, you don’t have to wait for Congress to act.” – President Obama at the State of the Union, January 28, 2014.

By using his executive power to raise the pay of America’s low wage federal contract workers, the President set a powerful example that’s starting to ripple through-out our economy…

Soon after the President’s announcement, Gap Inc announced it too would raise the pay of its 65,000 workers, including those at Banana Republic and Old Navy, to $10 an hour.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey sent a letter to America, Delta, JetBlue and United Airlines calling on them to raise the pay of their 8,000 employees at JFK International and LaGuardia Airports. In response, both Delta Airlines and American Airlines announced plans to increase their starting pay to $10.10 an hour.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio also announced that he would sign an executive order ensuring developers at city-subsidized projects pay at least $11 an hour to their employees. “In past decades, working people built our city, and for their hard work they were rewarded—not always with great wealth, but with a fundamental assurance … that hard work could pull them from modest means into a growing middle class.” said the Mayor.

Principal Chief Bill John Baker of the Cherokee Nation, one of the largest Native American tribes in the country, followed suit with an executive order raising the wages of its low-wage workforce to $9.50 an hour.

And it hasn’t stopped there – from the Governor of Washington to the Mayor of Saint Louis, more and more of our nation’s political and business leaders are considering taking executive action to lift-up wages…

The fight for a Good Jobs Nation has just begun!