Bills Introduced To Raise Federal Minimum Wage To $10.10 An Hour
Source: Workers Independent News
By Doug Cunningham
Bills to raise the minimum wage have been introduced in both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House. SEIU President Mary Kay Henry says Senator Tom Harkin and Rep. George Miller have taken a stand for millions of struggling families by introducing the bills. Henry says anyone with a job shouldn’t have to live in poverty. Henry says raising the minimum wage is a good thing for the economy because it puts more money in the pockets of people who will spend it. She called on the Senate and the House to pass the bills raising the minimum wage from the current $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour.
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As a Clerk II. Clerks I only made $1.60 an hour. The state was not required to pay minimum wage so few of the starting positions paid over minimum wage. The official policy was that if you had a good evaluation after your first 3 months, you got a 10% pay increase and then 10% every six months as long as your evaluations were good, so few clerks had remained at minimum wage or below for long.
Three weeks after I started the legislature put a freeze on pay increases for any reason. So in the year I worked there, despite excellent evaluations, I got no pay increase at all. My take home was less than $300 a month and I couldn't make ends meet.
My parents offered me $300 a month plus tuition if I went back to college. No brainer - I turned in my resignation and finished my degree. Then I couldn't find a job at all because the state had added a hiring freeze to their pay freeze. 
The conservative lobbying group Alec has been behind a major push against the pay rates of low-wage American workers by sponsoring or supporting scores of new laws aimed at weakening their protections, a new survey has found.
The proposed laws are generally aimed at reducing minimum wage levels, weakening overtime protection or stopping the local creation of minimum wage laws in cities or states. Using language similar to “model bill” templates drafted by Alec, they were put forward by local politicians who are almost always Republican and affiliated with the powerful conservative group.
Critics say Alec is backed by powerful corporate groups who are seeking to draft legislation that serves their business interests. “Public scrutiny is the best weapon against their agenda,” said Jack Temple, a policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, which advocates on workers’ rights and drew up the report.
“With real wages for low wage workers already declining in the post-recession recovery, the last thing America’s workers need is frontal assault on pay and overall compensation by state legislatures,” said Christine Owens, Nelp’s executive director.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/06/american-legislative-exchange-council-behind-push-to-lower-minimum-wages-report/
This kind of conservative group-think and money are what needs to be dealt with to get a higher minimum wage.