HB 1086 - An amendment to the 'A Real Living Wage Act' (Passed To President)

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Aye

[Enduro]

Abstain

[Representative simossad]

Aye

[Potus]

Nay

[Mike Thick]

NAY

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Abstain



My decision here is based on the fact that while I support a $9.15 and even $10.00 minimum wage, my preference would be to, rather than repeat the mistakes of pre-reset and constantly jacking up the minimum wage, to let the regions handle further increase and we should instead pursue a significant expansion of the EITC.

I am not a fan of Tax Credits generally, or anything that adds complexity to the Tax code, I want a simpler and streamlined tax code that minimizes compliance costs (which disadvantage small business I would point out), but I am even less a fan of making the minimum wage so high that cripples rural communities and put small businesses out of business. Therefore the one area I would be open to keeping some degree of complexity is the EITC, which I think serves a vital and important role of both encouraging productive work on the one hand, while providing substantial assistance the helps lift millions of families and children out of poverty every year.

I do support the concept of a minimum wage and I certainly support it going to the $10 an hour range. But when it when comes to further advancing the cause of a living wage, I think there are better avenues to pursue that worthy objective and it is certainly one that I support. I do not want to vote Nay though, because I feel that would be a statement of opposition to the desired objective of a living wage.

[Goldwater]

By a vote of 4-2-2, with 1 member not voting, this bill (weakly) passes to the president for his signature or veto.

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Atlasian Regional Senate
Passed 3-1-1-1 in the Atlasian Senate Assembled,
XLeinad

Atlasian People's House of Representatives
Passed 4-2-2 in the Atlasian House Assembled,
*insert Yankee's signature here*

President of Congress:

[/quote]

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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Atlasian Regional Senate
Passed 3-1-1-1 in the Atlasian Senate Assembled,
XLeinad

Atlasian People's House of Representatives
Passed 4-2-2 in the Atlasian House Assembled,


President of Congress:

[/quote]

[Terry the Fat Shark]

VETO
While I see the merits in this bill, I believe this is something the regions should handle. Therefore, I encourage either a reform to this bill or an outright cut of it to allow the regions to make their proper adjustments. I believe that minimum wage should be adjusted by area, 10$ is high enough nationally.

(copy pasted from my office)

[OneJ]

President DFW,

I respect your service that you have done for the Republic of Atlasia thus far and I am very aware that we don't agree on everything. Your decision to veto this bill is just one of the many disagreements we have my friend.

Increasing the minimum wage will help push people out of poverty. Let's say for example that a person that is working full time at a federal minimum wage of $7.25 earns $15,080 a year. It is 20% higher than the 2015 federal poverty level of $12,331 for a one-person household under 65 years of age but is 8% below the 2015 federal poverty level of $16,337 for a single-parent family with a child under 18 years of age. According to a 2014 Congressional Budget office report, increasing the minimum wage to $9 would lift 300,000 people out of poverty. A 2013 study by University of Massachusetts at Amherst economist Arindragit Dube, PhD, estimated that increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 is "projected to reduce the number of non-elderly people in poverty by around 4.6 million people, or by 6.8 million people when longer term effects are accounted for."

A minimum wage increase would help to reduce gender and racial equality. For example, women in a country might represent 47% of the total workforce, yet they make up 63% of minimum wage workers. Blacks represent 12% of the workforce, but the are 17.7% of minimum wage workers. Latinos comprise 16% of the total workforce, but make up 21.5% of all workers making minimum wage. The median income for women is 78% of the national median income, blacks make 67% of the national median income, and Latinos make 79% of the national median income.

Increasing the minimum wage would have a ripple effect, raising the incomes of individuals who make slightly above the minimum wage already. Melissa S. Kearney, PhD, and Benjamin Harris, PhD, of the Brookings Institution found that increasing the minimum wage would result in higher wages not only for the 3.7 million people earning incomes but also for up to 35 million workers who make up to 150% of the federal minimum wage. Researchers at the White House Council of Economic Affairs (CEA) found that an increase to $10.10 an hour would raise wages for 28 million people--about nine million of those due to the "ripple effect."

In the meantime, I have opposition against your action and hope you do reconsider. If I could, I would likely override the decision since Blair is no longer a Representative.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

The minimum wage is already being increased to 10$.

[OneJ]

Well, I'll rest my case then.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Overrides is one problematic area with rules we will need to sort out.


Actually the problem is with sponsorship.

The rules presume all bills have a sponsor in a given house. But with the system as a it works, bills are transmitted to the other chamber, without heed to obtaining a sponsor first. And membership changes remove a sponsor.


I would recommend that a House member move to sponsor Senate originated bills, going forward to resolve this problem.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The minimum wage is already being increased to 10$.

There is a marginal benefit, that someone smarter than me with math and graphing stuff can probably put on a chart, but my theory is that there is substantial benefits with increases from $7.00 to $10.00, but then that tappers off as you keep increasing because the impact on businesses labor costs outweigh the increased demand and lead to higher unemployment. Of course, inflation would also change the numbers that this range is, over time.

Beyond that point, you need tailoring to local economic realities, and of course non-minimum wage solutions such as expansion of EITC.