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Friday, January 27, 2006
$7.50 Wage Is Backed
Journal Staff Writer
A House committee voted Thursday to recommend
passage of a bill to raise the state's minimum wage to $7.50 an hour next
January.
All five Democrats on the House Labor and Human Resources
Committee voted for the bill.
Two Republicans voted against it.
The committee heard more than three hours of testimony
from dozens of witnesses. Some opponents warned that chile
growers would move operations to Mexico,
child care businesses and small grocers would close and nursing home
operators would cut employees' benefits if the bill passed.
Supporters argued economic data do not show any meaningful
job loss or business failures when minimum wages are increased and said the
state had a moral obligation to raise low-wage workers' pay.
Witnesses pointed to Santa Fe's
$9.50-an-hour wage to argue for and against the bill.
The bill, sponsored by House Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Santa
Fe, would raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour Jan. 1 and would increase
it automatically each year by the lesser of 3 percent
or the rate of inflation. Local governments could set their own higher wage
under Lujan's bill.
Lujan dismissed warnings of business failures, layoffs and
reduced hiring, saying the same warnings were sounded every time the
Legislature has increased the state's minimum wage. "I really see no
downside," Lujan told the committee.
Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce president Terri
Cole said business lobbyists were realists and believed a minimum wage would
pass this session.
She asked the committee to back a bill similar to one
offered by Sen. Ben Altamirano, D-Silver City,
which would phase the increase in over three years.
Sayuri Yamada, lobbyist for the
Association of Commerce and Industry, argued "Since a large portion of New
Mexico is made up of small businesses and small
towns, we feel a sudden increase in labor cost, plus taxes and insurance,
would be harmful to business."
But Voices for Children economist Gerry Bradley said there
would be "absolutely no impact on the economy."
He added, "Even if business passes on the full cost
to consumers, costs would go up only minimally, only 2 percent."
Labor Secretary Conroy Chino took no position on the bill,
but he testified that 123,000 workers earn less than $7.50 an hour today.
More than 80 percent of them are older than 20, and 60
percent work full time. About half are in the retail trade or leisure and
hospitality industries, Chino
said.
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