A Minimum Wage ‘Fair To All Workers’
January 30, 2007, 8:23pm
During this weeks’ minimum-wage debate in the Senate, South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint proprosed language that would require all states to raise their wage floors by $2.10 cents an hour. He said the
“This debate has become a measure of how much we care for workers, and that’s what this debate should be about,” DeMint said, arguing that the underlying Democratic bill would unfairly exempt states that have the highest minimum wages even though they also have the highest costs of living.
He noted that the senators who are most passionate about raising the federal minimum wage also happen to live in the states that would be exempt from the legislation, including California, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington. DeMint said the bill as written makes a lot of “false promises” to workers there.
“They get nothing,” he said. “All of the blue states, the high-cost states, where an increase is most important … these get no increase.” He added that if Congress is going to raise the minimum wage, “we should do it for all workers.
Categories: South Carolina, Labor, Jim DeMint
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