Okay, this is just ridiculous. Via a blog I discovered simply through this story, it appears that an amendment was slipped into a health care bill that would, effectively, abolish the minimum wage.
We’re not making this up. Here’s what Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) had to say about the Allard amendment that was offered to the Senate bill (S. 2) to raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour:
“On the Allard amendment, members should understand what the effect of the Allard amendment is, and that is effectively to repeal the minimum wage for any states among the 50 states. That effectively is what the Allard amendment does.”
You can read more of Kennedy’s remarks on the link there, but the important thing is this Allard Amendment business. The AA, as we’ll call it hence, was squeaked into the larger HR2, which ironically enough proposing increasing the minimum wage. The amendment is pieced into the Health Care section, and reads as follows.
SA 116. Mr. ALLARD submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2, to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:
At the end of section 2, add the following:
(c) State Flexibility. — Section 6 of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 206) is amended by adding at the end the following:
“(h) State Flexibility. — Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, an employer shall not be required to pay an employee a wage that is greater than the minimum wage provided for by the law of the State in which the employee is employed and not less than the minimum wage in effect in that State on January 1, 2007.”.
That (h) is the important part. Via one paragraph, Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO) attempted to eliminate the federal minimum wage. Just poof, gone. It is now entirely up to the states to decide. There is no standard, and if states want to have no minimum wage at all, the federal government can’t force them to.
Now, severe conservatives may adore that. Those who think the federal government should be weak as possible may be cheering. However, they are in a bit of a minority. Around 80% of the nation supports RAISING the minimum wage, imagine how few of them would support getting rid of it entirely.
Many on the right like to say that this is just something for teenagers making summer money. Looking at the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (which appears to be a bureau dedicated to statistics concerning labor) data seems to contradict that.
Minimum wage workers tend to be young. About half of workers earning $5.15 or less were under age 25, and about one-fourth of workers earning at or below the minimum wage were age 16-19. Among employed teenagers, about 9 percent earned $5.15 or less. About 2 percent of workers age 25 and over earned the minimum wage or less. Among those age 65 and over, the proportion was about 3 percent.
So right off the bat, half of ‘em are over 25, which throws the theory that most are teenagers earning weekend money out the window. But “under 25″ is a little nebulous. Their table 7 takes care of that, showing that about half of THOSE are 16-19, so a full 75% of those earning minimum wage or under are over 19 years old. So no, abolishing the minimum wage isn’t going to just hurt teenagers with weekend or summer jobs.
And in case your curious about who would vote for such a thing, here’s the list:
- Alexander (R-TN)
- Allard (R-CO)
- Bennett (R-UT)
- Bond (R-MO)
- Brownback (R-KS)
- Bunning (R-KY)
- Burr (R-NC)
- Chambliss (R-GA)
- Coburn (R-OK)
- Cochran (R-MS)
- Cornyn (R-TX)
- Craig (R-ID)
- Crapo (R-ID)
- DeMint (R-SC)
- Ensign (R-NV)
- Enzi (R-WY)
- Graham (R-SC)
- Gregg (R-NH)
- Hagel (R-NE)*
- Hatch (R-UT)
- Inhofe (R-OK)
- Isakson (R-GA)
- Kyl (R-AZ)
- Lott (R-MS)
- McCain (R-AZ)
- McConnell (R-KY)
- Sununu (R-NH)
- Thomas (R-WY)
If any of those are from your state, I’d suggest you go after them. I added the emphasis to point out two guys who appear to be vying for a 2008 presidential nod. Here’s a hint guys: it’s hard to get support when you take a position that harshly against the public opinion. Also, I wonder if anyone will go after McRage for that.
*Dammit, Hagel, what happened? You did so well on the Senate floor with the Iraq speech…
