Thwarted by Congress, states take lead with the minimum wage!

[rodeodance]

It is immoral! but our Repug congress could not care less!!!!




http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/02/national/02wage.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

January 2, 2006
States Take Lead in Push to Raise Minimum Wages
By JOHN M. BRODER

Despite Congressional refusal for almost a decade to raise the federal minimum wage, nearly half of the civilian labor force lives in states where the pay is higher than the rate set by the federal government.....



Thwarted by Congress, labor unions and community groups have increasingly focused their efforts at raising the minimum wage on the states, where the issue has received more attention than in Republican-dominated Washington, said Bill Samuel, the legislative director of the national A.F.L.-C.I.O.

Opinion polls show wide public support for an increase in the federal minimum wage, which falls far short of the income needed to place a family at the federal poverty level. Even the chairman of Wal-Mart has endorsed an increase, saying that a worker earning the minimum wage cannot afford to shop at his stores.
....



"Increasing the minimum wage is a bad move economically, philosophically and politically," said Marc Freedman, director of labor law policy for the United States Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Freedman said that any minimum wage set by the federal government was completely arbitrary and did not take local labor market costs into account........