Congress OKs raise for minimum-wage workers

Congress OKs raise for minimum-wage workers
By Jesse J. Holland
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune and The Associated Press
Published May 25, 2007

WASHINGTON -- America's lowest-paid workers won a $2.10 raise Thursday, with Congress approving the first increase in the federal minimum wage in almost a decade. By summer 2009, all minimum-wage jobs will pay no less than $7.25 an hour.

President Bush was expected to sign the bill quickly.

For years, the idea of increasing the minimum wage has been stalled by bickering between Republicans and Democrats.

That almost became the fate of this year's proposal. Democratic leaders attached the provision to the $120 billion Iraq war spending bill, which Bush vetoed May 1 because Democrats insisted on a pullout date for American troops.

But with the House and Senate passing a rewritten bill Thursday, the end is near for the longest stretch without an increase in the federal minimum wage since it was established in 1938.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) called the increase one of "the proudest achievements of this new Congress."

"We've overcome many obstacles -- and faced every procedural trick in the book -- to get this



minimum-wage increase across the finish line," Kennedy said. This will be the first change since the minimum wage went from $4.75 to $5.15 on Sept. 1, 1997, under then-President Bill Clinton and a Republican-controlled Congress.

A person working 40 hours per week at the current minimum wage of $5.15 makes about $10,700 a year. An increase to $7.25 would boost that to just over $15,000 a year.

More than two dozen states and the District of Columbia already have minimum wages higher than the federal level. Raising the minimum wage was a key part of Democrats' midterm election platform last year.

To help make it palatable for Republicans, they added $4.84 billion in tax relief for small businesses to help them hire new workers and offset any cost associated with the wage increase.



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Wage scale If President Bush signs the bill quickly, as expected, the minimum wage will increase as follows:

Currently: $5.15 an hour.

Before the end of the

summer: $5.85 an hour.

Next year: $6.55 an hour.

Summer 2009: $7.25 an hour.