Civil Rights Groups: Amendments Mar Senate Minimum Wage Bill
Feature Story by Tyler Lewis - 2/5/2007
Fifteen million Americans can finally look forward to an extra $2.10 an hour in their paychecks.
On February 1, the Senate passed the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, (94-3), giving millions of low wage workers their first raise in 10 years. The bill will raise the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour over the next two years.
"Passing this wage hike represents a small but necessary step to help lift America's working poor out of the ditches of poverty and onto the road toward economic prosperity," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, in a USA Today article.
However, civil rights groups expressed disappointment that the Senate added “unnecessary” tax cuts for businesses to the bill.
"In the last 10 years, the Republican-led Congress provided corporations with a whopping $276 billion in tax cuts and provided small businesses with another $36 billion in dedicated tax breaks, while America's lowest paid workers have gotten nothing," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
The bill will benefit nearly 15 million workers, which includes more than 7 million of those workers are also children. People of color, some 40 percent, are also disproportionately represented in the ranks of low-wage workers.
"Every Congress passes important legislation but few bills have the measurable impact of the Federal Minimum Wage Act," said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "It's unfortunate, though, that Congress couldn’t pass the bill without loading it up with yet another set of business tax sweeteners."
The House passed the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 (315-116) on January 10 without amendment. Because the Senate version is different from the House-passed bill, both chambers will have to agree on the final language that will go before President Bush for signature; a process that civil rights groups say delays a bill that is too long overdue.
"Minimum wage workers in this country have waited far too long for a raise – and it’s shameful that they must now wait even longer because of the Senate’s insistence on business tax giveaways," said Sweeney.
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