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Minimum wage bill signed into law by governor Tuesday, Apr 11, 2006 By Rob Moritz Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Gov. Mike Huckabee signed legislation Monday to raise Arkansas' minimum wage $1.10 an hour. The new law, approved by the Legislature in last week's special session, raises the state minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $6.25, effective Oct. 1. It's the first increase in the state minimum wage since 1997. "There is not anything that any of us purchase that costs the same or less today than it did in 1997," Huckabee said during a signing ceremony at the state Capitol. The govern used 28 pens to sign identical House and Senate versions of the legislation into law. He distributed the pens to numerous supporters of the measure who attended the bill signing. The Rev. Stephen Copley, chairman of Give Arkansas a Raise Now, said his coalition of churches and community groups had abandon an effort to certify a proposed constitutional amendment to raise the minimum wage on the November general election ballot. The proposal would have raised the minimum wage by $1 an hour and included an annual inflation hike. Huckabee, along with lawmakers and business leaders, preferred a statutory change to writing and minimum wage increase in to the state constitution. Copley said he and his supporters never envisioned a statutory minimum-wage increase when his coalition began pushing a constitutional amendment last year. "In our wildest dreams we never really imagined that we'd be sitting here today with an increase," Copley said at the news conference. In committee hearings last week, lawmakers were told that about 127,000 Arkansans work minimum wage jobs, and that more than 80 percent of those employees are over 20 years old. The original bill filed for the special session called for workers who rely on tips, such as waiters and waitresses, to be paid 50 percent of the new minimum wage. A compromise was later reached to reduce that amount to 42 percent. Arkansas isn't the first state to raise its minimum wage in recent weeks. In Michigan, lawmakers approved a new wage of $6.95 an hour, also effective in October. Several other states are considering similar increases. |
