Minimum Wage

THE FEDERAL government has decided that a minimum-wage increase is not a priority. With the recent defeat by Congress of two proposals to raise the minimum wage, it is imperative that Pennsylvania find a way to raise its minimum wage on a state or local level. This is exactly what Philadelphia Councilman W. Wilson Goode Jr. has done. The recent passage by City Council's Committee on Commerce and Economic Development of a proposal introduced by Councilman Goode requiring city-supported employers to pay at least 150 percent of the state minimum wage to its employees, is commendable.

About 500 people from various labor and unemployment coalitions rallied on the west steps of the Capitol yesterday to appeal to Congress to boost the $3.35-an-hour federal minimum wage. "We elect these people and they come up here and pay no attention to our needs," said Jim Carson, director of the People's Coalition in St. Louis. "They slip their pay raises through with no problems. " Labor subcommittees in both houses are considering legislation that would raise the federal minimum wage to $4.65 an hour over about three years.

Craig Garthwaite is director of research at the Employment Policies Institute As Gov. Rendell and state legislators consider a proposal for a $7 an hour minimum wage, they should also bear in mind Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan's warning that such a move "prevents people who are at the early stages of their careers . . . from getting a foothold in the ladder of promotions. " Wage-hike proponents often argue that minimum-wage employees haven't had a raise since Congress last increased the national rate.

RE YOUR EDITORIAL on the minimum wage and the debate on whether it should be raised: I hear all the time about how raising the minimum wage will hurt the people it is intended to help. Why is it that when union members get a raise, when state legislators give themselves a pay raise in the middle of the night, federal officials vote themselves a raise, CEOs (think Exxon-Mobil) and all other workers get a raise, the economy and minimum-wage workers are not adversely affected? But when people living in poverty are given pay raises, the economy and these workers suffer?

Ask any worker earning the minimum wage if he or she would like a pay raise, and odds are good the answer will be yes. After all, at $3.35 an hour - $134 a week, $6,968 a year - the federal minimum wage isn't much. And because it hasn't been raised since January 1981, inflation has eroded its buying power by 30 percent. Ask the same worker if he or she would like to be fired or have work hours cut back, however, and the answer probably will be no. But the worker can't have the raise without risking the loss.

WHEN THE clock expired at the end of the Super Bowl, a lot of so-called experts turned out to be wrong. The game is played on the field, and that often has a funny way of defying ill-placed prediction. Overshadowed perhaps by football, but even more important to millions of Pennsylvanians, was the January debunking of forecasts by experts even more certain than football commentators. Two years ago, during an intense debate over Pennsylvania's eroding minimum wage, the big-business lobby and some misled lawmakers were touting the work of a Florida economist who had supposedly studied Pennsylvania's labor market and come to the conclusion that adjusting the minimum wage for inflation would be disastrous for low-wage workers.

STATE SEN. Tina Tartaglione is to be commended for her commitment to helping low-wage workers. But her plan to have government dictate to business that each year it must pay workers more, regardless of a business' ability to do so, would actually further limit hiring opportunities for these workers. Unfortunately, supporters of a minimum wage cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) fail to realize this because they refuse to acknowledge that the recent minimum-wage hike had any negative impact.

Officers of the Oxford Circle Civic Association urged members to attend a rally at state Sen. Hank Salvatore's office next Thursday to show support for a bill raising the minimum wage and to protest the senator's vote on the measure. Joan Somers, the association's director of community affairs, said Tuesday night that the state Senate recently voted 25-24 against raising Pennsylvania's minimum wage from $3.35 to $4.65 an hour over the next three years. She said that Salvatore voted against the measure, which already had passed in the House.

The big progressive issue of campaign 2000 was previewed in Washington state Nov. 3, but no one in the rest of the country noticed. By a 68 percent majority, voters approved an initiative that hikes the minimum wage to $6.50 an hour by 2000, and then - for the first time ever - indexes it to rise each year with the cost of living. If ever there was an idea whose time has come, this is it. Inflation has eroded the minimum wage to the point where even 1996's two-step federal "increase" to $5.15 has left that wage with less purchasing power than it had in the late 1970s.

TRENTON — The Assembly on Thursday approved a bill that would increase the state's minimum hourly wage to $8.50 on July 1. If passed by the Senate, the measure would go to Gov. Christie, who has not said whether he would sign it. The 46-33 vote came down largely along party lines, with only one Democrat, Assemblyman Matthew Milam (Cumberland), voting against it. Democrats control both chambers in Trenton. Republican lawmakers argued that the state's economy is too fragile to handle a rise in business labor costs.

DOVER, DEL. - A bill that would allow illegal immigrants in Delaware to pay in-state tuition at colleges and universities has failed to clear a Senate committee. The so-called DREAM Act, which stands for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, failed to win enough votes Wednesday to be released by the Senate Education Committee. The bill would have permitted undocumented students to pay tuition and fees at the in-state, resident rate at the University of Delaware, Delaware State University and Delaware Technical and Community College.

For many of the last decade's early years, construction of rental units (also known as multifamily housing) played second fiddle - sometimes even third fiddle - to building for-sale homes. In Philadelphia and other major cities, conversion of rental apartments to condominiums was the rule. In the suburbs, apartment construction was blocked by the shortage and price of adequately sized land parcels, endless state and local permit processes, and not-in-my-backyard opposition. Back then, from the federal government on down, the emphasis was on making everyone a homeowner - whether they could afford it or not. As a result, when the bottom fell out of the for-sale market in 2006-07 and people began looking for rentals, the pickings were slim.

TRENTON - A plan to hike New Jersey's minimum wage by $1.25 to $8.50 an hour is a step closer to approval after the Senate Labor Committee passed it, 3-1, Thursday. The bill, which would peg the wage rate to inflation, passed an Assembly committee last month. Sen. Dawn Marie Addiego (R., Burlington) said she opposed the bill this is not the right time to hit businesses with a payroll increase. Employers might lay off the very people the bill aims to assist, she said. "We need to not only make sure that we create more jobs in New Jersey but that we keep all the jobs that we already have," she said during the committee hearing.

TRENTON - After hearing tales of hardship from low-wage workers and struggling businesses Thursday, a panel of New Jersey lawmakers decided it was time to give a boost to those who earn the minimum wage. The Assembly Labor Committee voted, 6-2, to approve a bill that would raise the minimum hourly wage to $8.50, a $1.25 increase that would give New Jersey one of the highest rates in the nation. The bill would peg the wage to inflation, allowing future increases to occur automatically.

TRENTON - After hearing tales of hardship from both low-wage workers and struggling businesses on Thursday, a panel of New Jersey lawmakers decided it was time to give a boost to those who earn the minimum wage. The Assembly Labor Committee voted 6-2 to approve a bill that would raise the minimum hourly wage to $8.50, a $1.25 increase that would give New Jersey one of the highest rates in the nation. The bill would peg the wage to inflation, allowing future increases to occur automatically.

They'll start showing up next month on farms across New Jersey. Thousands of seasonal workers will plant fields and trim trees, then tend and harvest crops during the spring and summer. Up to 180 work at Joe Marino's Sun Valley Orchards in Swedesboro, Gloucester County, and many - including migrant farm hands from Mexico - earn $7.25 an hour, the state and federal minimum wage. They would see their paychecks increase under a proposal by Assembly Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver (D., Essex)

YOU WONDER why anyone would want to run for president of the United States. Why, especially, would someone who has it made in the shade like Mitt Romney, with a good family, good health, good looks, good houses (a $12 million beachfront compound in the La Jolla section of San Diego and a $10 million home on Lake Winnipesaukee, in New Hampshire) and a net worth that he estimates to be somewhere "between $150 and about $200-and-some-odd million dollars," want to turn himself into a piñata for a year of ugly campaigning?

With transit fares, bridge and road tolls, food, gasoline, and other necessities getting more expensive, it's time for New Jersey's 40,000 minimum-wage workers to receive a long-overdue break. Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D., Essex) is pushing to increase the state's minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50 an hour. Workers making about $15,080 a year pay the same prices for goods as the average wage earner in New Jersey, who makes $56,385. But they're doing it in one of the most expensive to live in states.