Peggy Flanagan

Or do you want people who are going to fight, who are going to organize, who are going to bring new people into the party because they see themselves reflected in these fights?

I know what my choice is, and I'm ready to be one of those new voices and, frankly, a voice that's never been.

in the U.S.

Senate before.

I think democracy works best when it accurately reflects the community it seeks to represent, and it is bedtime.

And believe it or not, I will be one of the youngest people elected to the U.S.

Senate as a 46-year-old.

You know, and there's only four women, four moms with kids under the age of 18 who are serving in the U.S.

Senate.

Boy, you know, can you tell?

So it's time.

Absolutely.

So I am the former executive director of Children's Defense Fund, Minnesota.

And so when I was at Children's Defense Fund, I co-chaired the campaign to raise the minimum wage in Minnesota.

And the big fight for us was to make sure that we were also indexing it to inflation.

because costs were always going to go up.

So we needed families to catch up and then to keep up.

Now, every January for the last decade, we've seen an increase in the minimum wage here in Minnesota.

And the way that we talked about it is when you increase family income, you improve

child outcomes and a seven dollar and 25 minimum wage that hasn't been increased in 16 years is completely unacceptable so i believe that we need to fight for at least a 17 dollar minimum wage um to just be very clear that what we are seeing now 42 million americans who are on snap