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Last week, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.) introduced a bill to raise the federal Fair Labor Standards
Act's minimum wage to $10.00 per hour beginning 60 days after
enactment. Beginning one year after the new minimum took effect,
the rate would be subject to annual increases indexed to rises in
the Consumer Price Index.
Rep. Jackson's bill also proposes to raise the minimum cash
wage for employees for whom an employer takes the FLSA "tip
credit". The hike would be from today's $2.13 per hour
(the tips themselves must make up the difference to $7.25) to 70%
of the FLSA minimum wage, that is, to $7.00 per hour if the bill
becomes law as written. It is surely not happenstance that this
corresponds to one of the policy prescriptions in a reportalso issued last week by the
"Food Chain Workers Alliance", supported in part by Saru
Jayaraman of the University of California's "Food Labor
Research Center", who has urged similar measures about which
we have
written previously.
Also, Rep. George Miller (D-CA) is reportedly putting together a
bill that would take a less-abrupt approach to a minimum-wage
increase. Whether this will seem moderate only by comparison to
Rep. Jackson's proposal remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, over in the Senate sits the still-pending
bill introduced by Senator Harkin in late March calling for a
35% spike in the minimum wage, a $590-per-week increase in the
salary amount required for exempt "white collar" workers,
an immediate 41% rise in the cash wage required for tipped
employees, and a new paid-time-off entitlement.
Obviously, these developments are being closely coordinated to
take advantage of what proponents judge to be a favorable political
environment. And it is not beyond imagining that an election-year
deal might bring about some compromise version of these contending
visions. In the past, for example, substantial minimum-wage
increases have been exchanged for measures like a "training
wage" and an
"opportunity wage". Readers will have trouble calling
these to mind, because neither of them proved to be of any
practical or offsetting value to anyone.
Those who are troubled by the direction matters are taking would
be well-advised to remain vigilant and to waste no time making
their views known to Congress.
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Issues After The Election
