Posted on 07/28/2006 9:31:35 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - Bowing to moderates and seeking to defuse a campaign issue before leaving for vacation, House GOP leaders Friday planned a vote on a bill to increase the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour within three years.
The vote comes after almost 50 rank-and-file Republican lawmakers pressed House leaders — who strongly oppose the wage hike and have thus far prevented a vote — to schedule the measure for debate. Democrats have been hammering away on the wage hike issue and have public opinion behind them
"We weren't going to be denied," said Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio, a leader in the effort. "How can you defend $5.15 an hour in today's economy?"
It was a decade ago, during the hotly contested campaign year of 1996, that Congress voted to increase 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.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said GOP leaders had yet to determine the specifics of the bill, especially what to add to it to ease the sting on small businesses and other constituencies, such as the restaurant lobby. Lawmakers were hoping to bring it up for a vote by late Friday night, but Hastert said he was not completely certain the vote would occur.
Rep. Howard McKeon (news, bio, voting record), R-Calif., chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said Thursday that GOP leaders may attach a proposal passed last year that would make it easier for small businesses and the self-employed to band together and buy health insurance plans for employees at a lower cost.
That idea was blasted as a "poison pill" by Democrats and labor unions. The small business health insurance bill exempts new "association health plans" from state regulations requiring insurers to cover treatments such as mental health and maternity care. And opponents fear they would offer inferior prescription drug benefits.
Opponents of the idea also worry that the new health plans would skim healthier workers from traditional plans, thereby increasing the costs and pressures on those plans.
"It's outrageous the Republican Congress can't simply help poor people without doing something for their wealthy contributors," said Rep. Tim Ryan (news, bio, voting record), D-Ohio.
And Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called it a "political stunt" for GOP leaders to attach the minimum wage increase to legislation that's sure to bog down in the Senate. Democrats filibustered the health plans bill in May.
"It's a political stunt to put (the minimum wage increase) on a bill they know is doomed," Pelosi said.
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, the Republican-controlled Senate refused to raise the minimum wage, rejecting a proposal from Democrats.
It's long been clear that there is wide support for the wage increase in the House, but Republican leaders have a general policy of bringing legislation to the floor only if it has support from a majority of Republicans. Perhaps one-fourth of House Republicans support the wage increase.
Inflation has eroded the minimum wage's buying power to the lowest level in about 50 years. Yet lawmakers have won cost-of-living wage increases totaling about $35,000 for themselves over that time.
Lawmakers fear being pounded with 30-second campaign ads over the August recess that would tie Congress' upcoming $3,300 pay increase with Republicans' refusal to raise the minimum wage.
Wonder what welfare pays per week?
My first job over 30 years ago paid $6.00/hr. I can't believe you could even find a job that offered a wage as low as $5.15/hr. The free market works. Instead of voting to raise the minimum wage, they should rescind the law altogether.
The article didn't say it, but the Senate democrats also fought a republican proposal to raise the minimum wage and provide incentives for small businesses to cover the costs.
In other words, if the senate democrats hadn't voted against it, the senate would have approved an increase in the minimum wage for these "poor people" the democrats say they love.
And now the republicans in the house will also pass an increase for those poor people, but the democrats will oppose it because it will hurt their fat-cat union and lawyer lobbies.
But the newspaper will blame it all on republicans.
To LaTourrette, I say "You can't justify a $5.15 minimum wage. You can't justify ANY minimum wage. But once you've adopted an unjustifiable minimum wage, there is no rational way to pick the "correct" number, because the ONLY rational way to pick a wage is for an employer and employee to agree on a fair wage, and the "minimum wage" circumvents with that process.
"I can't believe you could even find a job that offered a wage as low as $5.15/hr."
Wanna bet? :)But then again, just last week I had to "explain" "cost of living" to a young man from CA who was dumbfounded at how "cheap" things are around here. ;)
That being said, the last thing I want is a "raise" in the minimum wage, which benefits no one but "govt." in the form of increased taxes on said increased wages. In the meantime, since the choice of employers is to either decrease employees or raise prices or both, the net result is to a: increase the number of minimum wage earners by encompassing those earning more than the present minimum but less than the new minimum and b: that said minimum wage earners end up even worse off than they were before the raise. :(
Wal-Mart and McDonalds both pay an average of over $10/hr.
What kind of jobs pay $5.15/hr? Not trying to be argumentaitve, I just don't see or hear of wages this low.
Yes we all long for the good ole days when employee and employer would come together and negotiate a wage.......the mines, the meat packing houses, the textile mills, the domestic servants for two dollars a day....ah for the days of unrestricted capitalism....
Don't our GOP Congressmen and Senators have any cojones at all?!
Ding ding ding! We have a winner!
Thomas Sowell would be proud of you. :-)
If the idea here is to ensure that full time employees are guaranteed a "living wage" then there is a simpler way to do this than by raising the federally mandated minimum age.
The government needs to simply write a check to every worker in America that makes up the difference between what they earn in a year and what they need to comfortably live on. This can be paid for out of a special government fund set up specifically for this purpose and doesn't need to come out of the general fund. The way to pay for this is for the government to PRINT EXTRA MONEY to exactly cover the amount needed by this program.
Now, some people out there might argue that the government printing extra money and putting it into circulation doesn't actually put anything of real value into the economy but simply results in out of control inflation and an erosion of peoples savings, and those people would be right. But, in the end, it's the exact same thing as the federal government mandating higher minimum wages.
Too many people are applauding instead of recognizing the sarcasm.
That's why I think we need to index the minimum wage for inflation. It's so low, it's not really hurting anything now. Indexing it for inflation will take the issue off the table forever, but will continue to keep the minimum wage from being a problem. (Indexing a wage to inflation instead of wage growth will allow it to fall further and further behind. That is why Social Security is indexed to wage growth.)
They want to increase the minimum wage by 40% over two years.
While few people actually work for the minimum wage, this will shift result in shifting a lot of hourly pay scales up and will cause a significant jump in inflation.
Socialism doesn't work.
My children are in violation of this law.....
If I find someone willing to be my domestic servant for $2/day, how do you have any say in that contract?
Likewise, what business is it of mine how much you choose to pay your servant? But out of curiosity, how much would you pay?
true true
If we can get together to use the government to force the "robber baron" to give us more than we are worth, why can't we use the government to force him to pay us for not even working at all?
I agree the minimum wage needs to be adjusted. Take the original (.25 in 1938) and adjust to todays dollars. The wage would be about $3.50!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.