ms. hirono: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. ms. hirono: mr. president, i rise in support of the minimum wage fairness act because it's time to give everyone a fair shot. more and more states are voting to raise the minimum wage. last week, the hawaii state legislature passed a bill to raise the minimum wage in my home state. hawaii's bill will increase the wage from $7.25 to $10.10 and increases the tip wage to at least $9.35. hawaii will become the tenth state enacting a wage increase since president obama's 2013 state of the union address. in 2014 alone, connecticut, delaware, maryland, minnesota, west virginia and washington, d.c. have enacted wage increases. hawaii will become the 26th state with a higher minimum wage than the current federal minimum wage. it's time for congress to join with the states that are leading the charge to give hardworking families a raise. i'm going to share a few reasons why the u.s. senate should vote to raise the minimum wage. first, today's federal minimum wage is a poverty wage. if the minimum wage had kept

ms. hirono: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. ms. hirono: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent for extension of time of six minutes to be divided equally between myself and senator stabenow. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. hirono: i'm going to keep my remarks short, mr. president, because i know there are others who want to speak on why we need to raise the minimum wage from from $7.25 to $10.10. focusing on hawaii, in hawaii, nearly 100,000 women would get a raise if we were to do this. that's one out of five women workers in hawaii. mr. president, you and i are both from hawaii. we know the high cost of living in hawaii. minimum wage amongst about 14 -- amounts to about $14,500 a year. the average rent for a one bedroom in hawaii is almost $1,300 a month. that is more than $15,000 a year. is that -- there is no wonder that people in hawaii have to work more than one job. in hawaii, tourism is our number-one industry. we have a lot of tip workers. they work in our restaurants. and do you know that there are many people who work