Poverty in Kentucky

We the citizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, hereby petition two things to the government of said state: 1.) to raise the state minimum wage from the current United States minimum of $5.65; 2.) to enact a low income tax credit card.





On the issue of minimum wage, we hereby petition the minimum within the state to be raised to $7.10 by 2008, $8.00 by January 2009, and eventually to $8.75 by April 2010. We feel that this is in the Commonwealth of Kentucky's best interest, seeing as though Kentucky is 43rd in the nation for Per Capita income ($28,513).





Also, it is a travesty that 16.3\% of Kentucky residents are living below the poverty line (Source: US Census Bureau). That is approximately 685,590 people. This is unacceptable. We hereby suggest to the government of the Commonwealth of Kentucky to enact what we would like to call a Low Income Tax Credit Card. This would allow those people in the 16.3\% statistic to get a credit from the state sales tax and property tax. This would lower the state sales tax from 6\% to 2\%. This means, if you buy $100 worth of taxable items (eg Clothing), instead of paying $106 you would pay $102. Little savings can make big differences when someone makes less than $13,000 per year.





We ask you to please enact the above for the sake of the people of Kentucky.