Posted on 08/23/2004 6:45:42 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - A bill to raise California's minimum wage to $7.75 an hour across the next two years is headed to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, providing a major test of his pledge to reject bills that "harm the state's business climate."
Schwarzenegger is expected to veto the bill, which the state Assembly passed Monday, days after the Senate also approved it. Business groups that are among the governor's biggest financial supporters say they widely believe the governor will block the organized labor-backed bill.
Democrats led a 43-31 vote to send the bill to the Republican governor after a fierce partisan debate about the minimum wage's role in fighting poverty among workers.
"The idea that this is a young person's wage is no longer true in California, and no longer true in other states," said the bill's author, Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Santa Clara.
Taxpayers, Lieber said, are increasingly saddled with higher social services costs as "low-wage employers are shifting their labor costs onto the public. "It ought to be the shame of everyone in California that we have a dramatically rising level of poverty in our state."
A recent study by the California Budget Project, a nonprofit group that evaluates the impact of state spending on low- and middle-income families, reported that nearly 60 percent of those earning minimum wage in California were more than 25 years old.
But several Republicans countered that a $1 dollar raise will drive more businesses out of California and cause them to lay off the state's poorest workers as they also struggle with high energy and workers' compensation costs.
"Why do we hurt the poor with these sort of misguided policies?" asked Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Murrieta.
Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, R-Cathedral City, voted against the wage hike proposal, saying the many farm workers in her district would not get a raise.
"This will not affect the salaries of farm workers," she said. "They will not see one penny increase in their salaries."
Lieber acknowledged that some farm workers would fall into categories exempt from the raise.
The legislation would hike the state's current $6.75 wage by 50 cents on Jan. 1, 2005, and another 50 cents on Jan. 1, 2006. That would raise California's minimum wage above high levels in neighboring states, including $7.15 per hour in Alaska and Oregon, and $7.16 per hour in Washington.
The federal minimum wage is $5.15 per hour.
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On the Net:
Read AB2832 at http://www.legislature.ca.gov
way to make california more business friendly, you morons.
He is expected to veto this bill. Lets hope he does it.
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