HR Policy, March 8, 2013
This week, Senate HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Rep. George Miller (D-CA) introduced legislation to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 over three years, over a dollar higher than proposed by President Obama. As with the President's proposal, the bill (S. 460/H.R. 1010) would also index later increases to inflation. At a press conference, Sen. Harkin said the current $7.25 per hour "has become a poverty wage" and that it is "basic economics" that paying more would increase both spending and demand. U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce CEO Margot Dorfman also appeared at the conference, attacking large companies: “In our experience, workers who are paid poverty wages work overwhelmingly for the big national and international chains, not for main street businesses. In fact, big corporations that pay poverty wages count on small businesses and taxpayers to subsidize them by providing food stamps and other forms of public assistance to their workers and their families who can't make ends meet, and that's just not right."