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As some of you may have heard, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that will increase minimum wage to $10 in 2016. On the federal level, minimum wage is $7.25.
Does anyone support this decision and think it'll help, or is $10 too high for minimum wage?
That would top the current highest state figure – $9.19 an hour in Washington State – as well as the federal minimum wage of $7.25, which is the level in all but 18 states and the District of Columbia.
"Small-business owners will now be forced to make tough choices including reducing employee hours, cutting positions entirely, and for many, closing their doors altogether," said John Kabateck, head of the California branch of the National Federation of Independent Business.
That’s good news for the estimated 3 million Californians – 1.5 million in full-time, year-round employment – currently in minimum-wage jobs.
Teenagers in fast-food and other low-wage jobs account for just 5.3 percent of minimum-wage workers; the rest are adults older than 21, including 34 percent who are older than 40. Hispanics make up 40 percent of California’s population but account for nearly two-thirds of minimum-wage workers, many of them in the agriculture industry.
The federal minimum wage of $7.25 provides $15,080 a year assuming a 40-hour work week, which is $50 below the federal poverty line for a family of two. More than 15 million workers nationally earn the national minimum, which compares with the median national salary of $40,350, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The last time Congress raised the federal minimum wage was in 2007, when a three-step increase from $5.15 to $7.25 in 2009 was approved. According to the National Employment Law Project, a minimum wage that had kept pace with inflation since 1968 would be $10.56 today.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politi...er-hour-minimum-wage-push-other-states-to-act
Does anyone support this decision and think it'll help, or is $10 too high for minimum wage?
That would top the current highest state figure – $9.19 an hour in Washington State – as well as the federal minimum wage of $7.25, which is the level in all but 18 states and the District of Columbia.
"Small-business owners will now be forced to make tough choices including reducing employee hours, cutting positions entirely, and for many, closing their doors altogether," said John Kabateck, head of the California branch of the National Federation of Independent Business.
That’s good news for the estimated 3 million Californians – 1.5 million in full-time, year-round employment – currently in minimum-wage jobs.
Teenagers in fast-food and other low-wage jobs account for just 5.3 percent of minimum-wage workers; the rest are adults older than 21, including 34 percent who are older than 40. Hispanics make up 40 percent of California’s population but account for nearly two-thirds of minimum-wage workers, many of them in the agriculture industry.
The federal minimum wage of $7.25 provides $15,080 a year assuming a 40-hour work week, which is $50 below the federal poverty line for a family of two. More than 15 million workers nationally earn the national minimum, which compares with the median national salary of $40,350, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The last time Congress raised the federal minimum wage was in 2007, when a three-step increase from $5.15 to $7.25 in 2009 was approved. According to the National Employment Law Project, a minimum wage that had kept pace with inflation since 1968 would be $10.56 today.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politi...er-hour-minimum-wage-push-other-states-to-act
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