WASHINGTON – House Republican leaders, giving in to political reality, plan a vote to raise the $5.15 minimum wage before leaving Washington this weekend for a five-week recess. ‘Whether people like it or not, we need to go ahead with it,’ said Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., who supports the idea. ‘There’s a general agreement among Republicans (opposing the raise) that ‘maybe we don’t like it much, but we need to move forward with it just for political reasons.’ The No. 3 House GOP leader, Majority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, said the plan was to have a vote before week’s end. But Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Republicans leaders were working to pass the increase but that ‘no decisions have been made.’ It was a decade ago, during the hotly contested campaign year of 1996, that Congress last passed an increase in the minimum wage. A person working 40 hours per week at minimum wage makes $10,700, which is below the poverty line for workers with families. Democrats have made increasing the wage a pillar of their campaign platform and are pushing to raise the wage to $7.25 per hour over two years. In June, […]