By Holding Minimum Wage Hostage, Senate Republicans Cost Workers $750

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/05/25/by-holding-minimum-wage-hostage-senate-republicans-cost-workers-750/

By Holding Minimum Wage Hostage, Senate Republicans Cost Workers $750

by Mike Hall, May 25, 2007

On Jan. 10, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to raise the federal minimum from $5.15 an hour, where it had been stuck since 1997, to $7.25 an hour. But Senate Republicans killed the bill Jan. 24 and set off a 134-day minimum wage hostage crisis.

Finally yesterday, Senate Republicans released their hostage when they approved a supplemental Iraq war spending bill that included the wage hike. It’s estimated the increase will raise the pay of some 13 million workers who earn less than $7.25 an hour and another 7.4 million who earn a bit more but are likely to see their pay increase.

In a nutshell, here’s what happened since the House passed the bill more than three months ago. With Bush’s blessing, Senate Republicans engaged in filibuster, insisted on massive tax breaks for businesses, refused a House compromise on the tax breaks and even balked at going to a conference with the House to hash out a deal.

A bit of simple math shows the following: The delay tactics cost minimum wage workers $750. (The raise comes in three steps—the first is a 70-cent-an-hour increase, or $5.60 a day, for an eight-hour day, comes to $750.40 for 134 days.)

The final wage package trimmed the Senate Republicans’ tax breaks for businesses from $8.3 billion to $4.8 billion, but even that multibillion-dollar giveaway doesn’t satisfy the Bush administration.

Although a White House spokesman said Bush would sign the spending bill with the attached wage increase, he said the tax breaks were “not sufficiently focused on the economic concerns” of business. But on the other hand, since when has the Bush administration been sufficiently focused on the economic concerns of working families?