Democrats challenge Bush to raise minimum wage

Source: The Detroit News
WASHINGTON - Congressional Democrats, taking aim at President Bush the day before he formally unveils a tax cut package they have criticized as too skewed toward the wealthy, challenged him Wednesday to increase the minimum wage.

Their proposal would gradually increase the minimum wage by $1.50 an hour, to $6.65 an hour by 2003.

House Minority Whip David Bonior of Mt. Clemens, who sponsored the legislation with Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, said the plan would give extra money to low-wage workers he contends benefit little from Bush’s tax cut plan.

“Over the course of last year’s campaign, then Governor Bush made a point of stressing that he’d be a compassionate president,” Bonior said. “Now he has the opportunity to back up those words with deeds.”

Bush supports a $1 increase, but wants to make it optional for states, said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

Typically, the business community and Republicans have opposed increases in the minimum wage, which has stood at $5.15 an hour since 1997, because the added cost might force employers to lay off workers.

“If an entrepreneur has started to expand business and then a wage hike kicks in, they might expand but maybe not as much,” said Ann Parker, a vice president at the Small Business Association of Michigan. “Business owners are paying a lot more than $5.15 an hour to retain good workers.”

Kennedy said unemployment dropped after the 1996 minimum wage increase.

The increase would begin with a 60-cent per hour wage increase 30 days after the bill’s passage. That would be followed by a 50-cent increase at the start of 2002 and a 40-cent increase a year later.
Source: The Detroit News