Tag Archives: $15.00 minimum wage

The Valley News: reporting on the minimum

Business, local/regional, , ,

The business reporter for The Valley News recently did a story about minimum wage changes in the works in Vermont and New Hampshire legislatures. Both states have Democratic majorities with GOP governors who oppose hikes. In 2018 Vermont Governor Scott vetoed a minimum wage increase.

The focus of the VNews article is on “tipped” service workers that are allowed to be paid lower minimum wages than other workers and in theory can make up the difference in gratuities.

At issue in both states are changes to the overall minimum wage and possible hikes to the minimum for tipped workers. Currently: In New Hampshire, the minimum wage for employees who earn more than $30 per month through tips — known as the “tipped minimum wage” — is 45% of the applicable $7.25 per hour minimum wage, or $3.27 per hour.

In Vermont, tipped minimum wage for employees who earn more than $120 per month from tips is 50% of the applicable $10.78 per hour minimum wage, or $5.39 per hour.

Both states have written into their rules that if a server’s tip income falls below the general wage floor then the employer is required to pay the difference to bring the server up to the general per-hour minimum wage.

While that may seem to paint a bleak picture for the waitstaff’s income, the opposite is often true. As a rule, servers are the highest-paid non-management employees in the restaurant business.

Included are  quote and comments from Governor Sununu’s office (who opposes any change) and a representative of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce (a group that has opposed hikes in the past). The reporter also wrangled a couple comments from two high-end pub/restaurant-business owners (who presumably oppose changes). And finally he chatted to three servers who work for tips in the same prosperous local establishments. No comments by low-end tipped workers, a legislative sponsor, or  an economist are included.EPItipped1

If the article had included a supporter of the changes, they might have related a less rosy picture of the current situation … the negative points most people working at a sub-minimum wage for tips experience. The Economic Policy Institute wrote in 2018: that in states that have a lower tipped minimum wage [such as Vermont and New Hampshire] , tipped workers have worse economic outcomes and higher poverty rates than their counterparts in equal treatment states (regular state minimum wage plus tips, the law in eight states).

Now, to be fair I have to assume all the newly elected legislators from New Hampshire and Vermont Democratic majorities who support minimum wage hikes were reluctant to talk to the newspaper. Because otherwise the VNews business reporter would have managed to include a quote from one or even two of them…wouldn’t he?

wageslaves1

Waging minimum parity

local/regional, National, ,

Nationally one thing became clear in last Tuesday’s election: when a minimum wage hike is on the ballot, even red state voters can pass it — often overwhelmingly.

In Missouri and Arkansas an increase to the minimum wage was on the ballot, and although aggressively opposed by state GOP leaders and big money business groups, it passed overwhelmingly in both red states. Voters passed measures that will raise those states’ minimum wages almost immediately, and thereafter increase it at regular intervals — over years it’ll be edging up substantially. In Arkansas the minimum wage measure passed with 68 percent in voting in favor.builtonwages

If red state voters can accomplish such a feat for low-wage earners can blue Vermont do more?

Regionally pressure to raise the minimum wage is increasing. New York is phasing in a $15.00 minimum, and Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island have proposals in their legislatures to reach a $15.00 minimum. It isn’t too far-fetched that even traditionally low-minimum-wage New Hampshire might experience some pressure, now that the last election gave both houses in the state legislature a Democratic blue majority. And at NH’s current $7.50 per hour minimum, who can afford to work there if they can earn significantly more in a nearby state?

Vermont’s current minimum wage is $10.50, goes up to $10.80 in January 2019, and to $12.16 by 2024. Now Vermont doesn’t have ballot measures but a plan to increase the planned minimum was passed during the 2018 legislative session.

The 2018 legislative bill would have hiked our minimum to $15 per hour by 2024. It is estimated by the Economic Policy Institute that to meet basic housing, food, and transportation needs, a single full-time worker in rural Vermont needs to earn at least $15.00 per hour. However our GOP Governor Scott vetoed the increase which (along with a vetoed paid family-leave bill) would have made life in the state more affordable for actual working class families.

Maybe the new bluer so-called “super” majority of Democrats and Progressives in the Vermont legislature will decide to give Republican Scott a second chance at doing the minimum: making the lives of low-wage earners more affordable.