Minimum Wage

Patrick Tuohey at the Missouri Record suggests that attempts by labor and progressive groups to raise the minimum wage might just be a "red herring":  

perhaps the minimum wage issue is a red herring; a mere effort for the Left to turn out their base in a year that is looking increasingly bad for Democrats in Missouri and elsewhere. 

If raising the minimum wage to $8.25 an hour is a red herring, perhaps all of us who make more than $9 an hour should try taking the challenge on www.playspent.org. It is harder than you might think.   

If in the process of raising the minimum wage, Missourians realize certain politicians and political groups care more about working families than others so be it. Also, Tuohey fails to mention that the Missouri General Assembly hasn't mustered the strength to actually pick on workers making $7.25 an hour by passing the bill.  

I guess maybe they realize handing out tax credits to developers and corporations while feigning outrage over workers making $7.25 an hour might look bad, especially when 76 percent of Missourians approved raising the minimum wage. 

Think Progress notes that Missouri is one of 10 states that saw a decline in the median wage earned by workers from 2000-2010. 

According to Policy Matters Ohio, the states of Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan, Alaska, Minnesota, Missouri, Illinois, South Carolina, Indiana, and Iowa all saw their inflation-adjusted median wage decline from 2000 to 2010.

This weekend in the Star: "Take cover, Missouri workers, taxpayers and voters. Your state legislature has an agenda, and lawmakers are not about to let you stand in their way. The agenda is called 'fix the six.' It was handed to legislative leaders by a consortium of business groups headed by the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The House bought the package wholesale. Now the Senate is also working its way down the list...A Missouri Chamber of Commerce news release says the 'fix the six' agenda would make Missouri 'a more attractive and competitive place to do business.' That’s debatable. But 'fix the six' would surely make Missouri a meaner place to live and work. Shame on those lawmakers who have accepted a special interest agenda so unquestionably."

"Obviously, the people of Missouri spoke pretty loudly on that issue," Gov. Jay Nixon told Jason Rosenbaum today.

Today in the Post-Dispatch: "[The St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association and other major business organizations — including the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry — have a much lower standard of accuracy when it comes to the political arena. Case in point: Item four on the “Fix the Six” legislative campaign being waged in the Missouri Legislature. It would eliminate cost-of-living increases for Missouri’s minimum-wage workers. Missouri’s business community has dispensed with facts when it comes to chiseling pennies from Missouri’s lowest-paid workers. Instead, it has adopted one of the Legislature’s favored approaches: flimflammery."

Today in The Star: "Missouri House Republicans have long made clear their disdain for the state’s working poor. Now it seems their contempt extends to voters as well. By a count of 96 to 61, with all but eight Republicans in favor, the House this week took a preliminary vote to undo an essential portion of a 2006 voter-approved statute that is intended to guarantee low-paid workers a reliable base income...House Republicans would rather break faith with those voters than risk incurring the wrath of the pro-business groups that hold such sway inside the Capitol."

Moments ago, the House of Representatives voted 96-61 to pass HB61, a a de facto repeal of the minimum wage passed overwhelmingly by Missouri voters in 2006 that included an annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) to ensure the state’s lowest paid workers don’t fall behind each year.  The 2006 initiative stated that the Missouri minimum wage in a given year  would be the Missouri rate or the federal rate, whichever is higher. With the current state of the national and state economies,  Congressional Budget Office projections state that Missouri’s minimum wage is not expected to exceed the federal rate until 2015.

Eight Republicans refused to go along with their leadership's mean-spirited effort to make life even harder for families who are really struggling to make ends meet: Ryan Silvey of Kansas City, Ann Zerr of St. Charles, Lyle Rowland of Cedar Creek, Don Phillips of Kimberling City, Mike McGhee of Odessa, John McCaherty of High Ridge, Kent Hampton of Malden and Paul Fitzwater of Potosi.

McCaherty actually voted for the bill in committee.  Kudos to him for listening to his constituents instead of the corporate special interests.

David Lieb has a good story today on the Missouri legislature’s numerous attempts in recent years to thwart voters’ clearly articulated intentions by repealing parts of successful statewide initiatives. 

Chad Garrison in the Riverfront Times: "The Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry continued its mission this week of using the economic recession to scare lawmakers into thinking they need to make the state more 'job friendly' by stripping low-level employees of certain rights."

Yesterday, without debate, the House International Trade and Job Creation Committee passed Rep. Jerry Nolte's (R-Gladstone) bill (HB61) to overturn Missouri's minimum wage law that was passed by voters in 2006.  Nolte's proposal would completely eliminate the cost of living adjustments approved by 76% of voters in 2006, tying Missouri's minimum wage to the already inadequate federal standard.

Never mind all that talk about state sovereignty and respecting the will of the voters. 

The Riverfront Times' Chad Garrison asks: Does Making Missouri More "Job Friendly" Always Require Screwing the Working Class?

In 2006, 76 percent of Missouri voters supported a plan to increase the minimum wage to $6.50 and tie any future annual increases in the minimum wage to changes in the Consumer Price index. 

However, Rep. Jerry Nolte (R-Gladstone) and some of his fellow Republican colleagues think  that (as Roy Blunt would put it) "the Federal Gubmint" is a better authority for setting Missouri workers' wages than voters in the state.

According to the Associated Press, Nolte filed legislation prohibiting the Missouri minimum wage from rising above the federal one. The bill has the backing of several other Republicans, as well as a coalition of business groups.

I guess competitive wages might have been the only thing Nolte and his fellow Republicans weren't thinking about when they pushed legislation last year to enforce Missouri's "constitutional sovereignty and the sovereignty of its citizens under the Tenth Amendment." 

The correct answer is, "No."  But Michael Steele somehow can't muster the strength to say that Republicans aren't interested in reducing the minimum wage.  Given Steele's nack for telling whoever he happens to be talking to whatever they want to hear, his self-restraint on this issue is notable. 

Yesterday on The Eagle's Mike Ferguson radio program, Roy Blunt was asked by a caller to explain his votes against raising the minimum wage.  Blunt responded by saying he's only voted against a wage hike one time while he's been in Washington. 

CALLER: I'd like to know why he has repeatedly voted against minimum wage increases when that's the level people that are hurting the most right now.  And it's been continuous over fourteen years.

BLUNT: Well, I haven't repeatedly voted against minimum wage. In fact, I think it's been before the House three times. I voted for it twice and against it once.  And I thought the last plan was a bad plan at a bad time.  When you raise minimum wage at a time when this minimum wage vote came around, you're gonna, you're gonna stop opportunities at the very time when people need opportunities.

Listen:

Actually, Blunt voted against a minimum wage increase three times in 2007 and at least four times in 2006 (i.e., repeatedly).