Senate votes for minimum wage increase

By Michael J.W. Stickings

$7.25 an hour.

That's what the minimum wage will be if a Senate bill, passed 94-3 yesterday, is reconciled with a House bill that was passed a few weeks ago. (President Bush supports the Senate bill.)

The Senate bill includes moderate tax cuts for small businesses, a necessary trade-off to secure Republican support. House Democrats may not support including this and other trade-offs in reconciled legislation, but they should make the effort to compromise.

Although I would like to see an increase in the minimum wage passed with no strings attached, the reality is that strings must be attached if any increase is to pass. And what matters most here is that the working poor, currently stuck with a shockingly low minimum wage of $5.15, a wage that hasn't been increased in a decade, could use the additional $2.10 an hour. I am ashamed to say that I spend about that much just on coffee every morning. To the working poor, that much could mean putting food on the table for their children and paying the heating bill.

The priority should be clear.

(For more, see Bob Geiger, Howie Klein, and Pamela Leavey.)