Kansas GOP: $5,300 per year is enough
The Kansas state minimum wage (which affects only those outside federal standards) is $2.65. The recent push to boost the federal minimum wage inspired some legislators to try boosting the state minimum, but 62 Kansas House Republicans rejected the increase.
Rep. Benjamin Hodge reportedly rejected the bill because he wants to avoid “European-style socialist bills.”
Because here in America, if you can’t live on $106 per week, you just aren’t trying.
A biologist and statistician by day, battling pseudoscience and raising a family by night.
10 COMMENTS
This is an easy position for them to take. The federal minimum wage overrides any state minimum wage. Most states either match the federal minimum wage or beat it. A few Southern states have no minimum wage–that is, they allow the federal minimum wage to stand without challenge. Kansas is one of the only (is it the only one?) that has an established minimum wage smaller than the federal minimum wage, and therefore meaningless.
This brings up an old position of mine. For the last two decades I have felt that the pay of elected officials should be constitutionally indexed to multiples of the minimum wage. Legislators should not be allowed to give themselves a raise, unless they give a raise to the entire working class under their jurisdiction.
This should be true at the state and federal level.
John, it actually isn’t meaningless. The federal minimum wage doesn’t apply to all workers, so the state wage applies to about 20,000 workers, mostly in agriculture.
Why did Bill Clinton reject a Republican offer in the late 90’s to index the minimum wage for inflation? I submit because Democrats wanted a political issue rather than permanently fixing the minimum wage problem.
That’s what bothers me most about this issue. Many small business owners would accept the increases via indexing because they could plan for it year over year rather than having to make a 20% adjustment in one year.
d: “Why did Bill Clinton reject a Republican offer in the late 90’s to index the minimum wage for inflation?”
When did Republicans make such an offer? Who wrote the legislation? How many votes did it get? I don’t recall any such legislation.
When Republicans were negotiating the last increase conference report, they offered to index it for inflation. Clinton said he would veto the bill. It wasn’t a vote, but there were news stories on it at the time.
Let’s say you don’t believe me.
Here’s a better question then, why didn’t the Democrats index it for inflation this year? Fix it forever. Take the politics out of it. Maybe I’m a cynic, but I bet they wouldn’t pass such legislation because they want it as a political football.
I don’t see any stories about inflation-indexing of the minimum wage in the ’90s, but all the stories show that the Clinton veto was threatened over tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that the Republicans were trying to push through.
I suspect that inflation-adjustments weren’t proposed this time because they wouldn’t pass the Senate, and wouldn’t make it past Bush’s veto. The art of the possible, and all that.
What do you think about my second question Josh, why aren’t the Democrats proposing to index it for inflation now. If they are really concerned about the minimum wage keeping up with inflation, why not do it? The only answer I can come up with is that they want to campaign on it.
D: I repeat my answer:
In order to get the minimum wage hike through the Senate and White House as is, they had to tack on all sorts of things. I doubt that Bush would have allowed inflation adjustment to go unvetoed, and I doubt there would be 6 Republicans in the Senate willing to vote for cloture on such a bill, let alone a supermajority in both houses to overturn a veto.
Democrats did refuse to raise congressional salaries until the minimum wage rose, which is a start.
Bush isn’t going to sign the current version, so the art of the possible thing is a red herring.
Do you believe Democrats should index it? Even if you do, they won’t because they don’t want to give the political issue away.
Umm.
The White House supports the minimum wage bill passed by the Senate.
I would favor some form of indexing. I don’t know whether that would pass through the House and Senate, but several states have passed laws or initiatives indexing state minimum wages.