2006 LEGISLATURE
Dems, GOP brace for fight on state minimum wage
Business groups pushing provision to prevent cities from setting higher
pay rates
By David Miles The New Mexican
New Mexico
could soon become the 18th state to raise its minimum wage higher than the
federal pay floor, but business groups will be pushing hard during this
year’s legislative session to bar local governments such as Santa
Fe from setting a rate higher than any new state
minimum.
The Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce supports raising the
state minimum wage of $5.15 an hour — which is the same as the federal floor
— as long as legislation also includes a “preemption” provision to prevent
local governments from setting even higher minimum wages, said Simon Brackley, the chamber’s interim president.
Brackley said a patchwork
of different wage floors would make it difficult for companies to do business
in New Mexico and would lead to
a “pretty chaotic state of affairs.”
“I believe that legislators can see that uniformity
is the best solution,” Brackley said.
Santa Fe’s
minimum wage for businesses with 25 or more employees increased to $9.50 an
hour this year under a local ordinance. Albuquerque
voters last year narrowly rejected a proposal to increase that city’s minimum
wage to $7.50 an hour.
Art Bouffard, president of
the New Mexico Lodging Association, said addressing Santa
Fe’s higher rate in state law might be difficult.
Like the Santa Fe chamber, the
New Mexico Lodging Association supports an unspecified raise in the state
minimum wage along with a provision barring local governments from setting a
higher rate.
But Bouffard suggested
lawmakers might have to carve out an exception to accommodate Santa
Fe’s higher wage floor. “Perhaps Santa
Fe is capped at $9.50 an hour,” Bouffard
said.
Other business groups backing a local pre-emption
provision include the New Mexico Restaurant Association and the Association
of Commerce and Industry of New Mexico.
Raising New Mexico’s
minimum wage promises to be a front-burner issue when legislators convene a
30-day session Tuesday. Both Gov. Bill Richardson and House Speaker Ben Luján, D-Nambé, have come out
in favor of raising the state rate.
Luján plans to sponsor a
bill that would raise the state minimum wage to $7.50 an hour. The speaker
said he is considering adding a provision automatically linking future minimumwage hikes to inflation rates but does not plan to
include a local pre-emption clause.
“I want to make it as simple as possible,” Luján said.
Richardson
has expressed support for raising the state wage floor but has not released a
specific figure. He said he plans to unveil details about his minimum-wage
proposal in his State of the State address Tuesday.
The Democratic governor last week told a group of
business leaders that they and legislators need to examine whether rural and
urban areas should have different wage floors; whether future increases in
the minimum wage should be tied to the cost of living or another measure; and
whether local governments should be able to set minimum wages that are higher
than the state rate.
Supporters of a minimum-wage hike point out that
Congress has not raised the federal wage floor since 1997, while inflation
has eroded the value of that rate since then. “I think that it’s
unconscionable for anyone to ask an individual to come and work for them and
offer $5.15 an hour,” Luján said.
House Majority Leader Kenny Martinez, D-Grants, said
raising the state minimum wage will be a top priority this session for
Democrats, who control both the House and the Senate.
House Minority Leader Ted Hobbs, R-Albuquerque,
predicted that House Republicans would fight any proposal to raise New
Mexico’s minimum wage.
He said a higher pay floor would hurt businesses and
result in job losses. “I don’t think it’s going to help anybody,” Hobbs
said.
Seventeen states have raised their minimum wages
higher than the federal rate of $5.15 an hour, according to the U.S.
Department of Labor. Washington,
which annually adjusts its minimum wage to account for inflation, has the
highest state pay floor at $7.63 an hour.
A recent study of 12 of the 17 states said higher
wage floors have not hurt job growth, and those states tend to have lower
poverty rates than states that share the federal minimum wage. The study was
compiled by New Mexico Voices for Children and New Mexicans for a Fair Wage,
a coalition of groups backing a higher state minimum wage.
“Based on the experience of other states, an increase
in New Mexico’s minimum wage to
$7.50 would not result in job losses,” the study said.
The Association of Commerce and Industry of New
Mexico wants to keep New Mexico’s
minimum wage the same as the federal rate, but the group is bracing for a
state increase.
“I think there is some momentum for a higher minimum
wage,” ACI President John Carey said.
Carey said he already is lobbying Richardson
for several concessions, including local pre-emption; phasing in any
minimum-wage increase; and exempting teenagers, workers in training,
part-time employees, seasonal workers and agricultural employees from a new
wage floor.
He also said Luján’s
proposed wage floor of $7.50 an hour is too high. “We think that would be a
real burden on small businesses and rural New Mexico,”
Carey said.
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