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Federal minimum wage increases, still lower than state minimum wage Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007 By Jason Wiest Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - The federal minimum wage rose 70 cents Tuesday to $5.85 an hour, the first of three yearly, 70-cent increases that will set the minimum wage at $7.25 an hour in summer 2009. Tuesday's wage hike will not affect Arkansas, however. The federal minimum wage has not risen since 1997, when former President Clinton signed a bill raising the minimum wage 40 cents to $5.15 an hour. During that 10-year span without an increase in the federal minimum wage, the District of Columbia and 32 states - Arkansas included - increased the minimum wage at the state level. The Arkansas Legislature increased the state's minimum wage to $6.25, effective last October. But local advocates for increasing the minimum wage are still celebrating the federal increase. "We've always envisioned every step as a step to a point where people would have enough money at minimum wage to live on," said Stephen Copley, who headed a coalition that advocated for the state increase last year. "This is a step in that direction. It's helpful, but it's not the end of the road." A spokesman for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, said the group would continue to press for raising the federal minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011. Under current legislation, the second 70-cent increment will be implemented next year and will raise the federal minimum wage to $6.55, thereby raising Arkansas' minimum wage by 30 cents. "But we're also saying that Congress needs to look at the facts," said Hattie Daniels, chairman of the Pulaski County chapter of ACORN. "It needs to be indexed and it needs to be indexed (for inflation) every year so that people can get a living wage." In November 2006, Pine Bluff voters approved a living wage ordinance that is indexed to inflation and that applies to city workers and employees of city contractors. "Until we index our state's minimum wage, workers will eventually fall behind - like Congress let the federal increase fall this past decade," Daniels said in a news release. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., said workers' wages have remained stagnant while the cost of living has increased dramatically. "Any parent who works 40 hours a week should not have to raise a family in poverty, and I'm proud that today, American workers will begin to have the increase they deserve," Lincoln said in a release. |
