Huckabee signs law boosting minimum wage
Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/151490/
Gov. Mike Huckabee signed into law Monday a bill that will raise the state’s minimum wage to $ 6. 25 an hour, giving Arkansas ’ workers a higher minimum wage than is paid in any surrounding state.
The increase was one of several bills adopted by the Arkansas Legislature in a special session last week. Lawmakers passed two identical bills that will increase the wage: Senate Bill 11 by Sen. Jack Critcher, D-Batesville, and House Bill 1033 by Rep. Benny Petrus, DStuttgart.
At a bill signing ceremony Monday, Huckabee credited the bill’s success to the willingness of different groups to reach a deal on the issue. It was a situation where “every one of the stakeholders came together to try to bring some effort toward a consensus and compromise.”
Huckabee signed SB 11 first, then HB 1033. By day’s end, SB 11 had been designated Act 15 of the 85 th General Assembly’s First Extraordinary Session.
The state’s minimum wage has been $ 5. 15 an hour since 1997. Huckabee said changes in the cost of living since that time have made the current wage “not realistic.”
“That’s not anything that any of us purchase that costs the same or less today than it did in 1997,” Huckabee said.
The governor said he’d sign education funding bills passed during the session today.
Also Monday, Huckabee signed HB 1046 by Rep. Bob Mathis, D-Hot Springs, which bans smoking in cars carrying children who are confined to car seats. It became Act 13 and will take effect 90 days after the end of the session, which Friday went into extended recess and is scheduled to go into final adjournment no later than May 1.
The new minimum wage law means supporters of a proposed constitutional amendment to raise the minimum wage to $ 6. 15 an hour will abandon that campaign, said Stephen Copley, a Methodist pastor who led that campaign.
That amendment also would have required the state to annually adjust the minimum wage for changes in the cost of living. Lawmakers like Petrus and Critcher say the wage should be addressed through statute and not the state Constitution. They also feared that regular adjustments for changes in the cost of living would push jobs to other states that have lower minimum wages.
“I don’t think there’s any question this was the way to do it,” Petrus said, adding that the state Constitution “wasn’t the place to be” for a minimum wage increase.
Under the terms of the minimum wage bills, Arkansas’ wage will increase from $ 5. 15 an hour to $ 6. 15 an hour Oct. 1.
The bill also would apply the minimum to state employees. The federal minimum wage is $ 5. 15 an hour.
Of Arkansas’ neighbors, Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri have state minimum wages set at $ 5. 15 an hour. Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee have no state minimum wages. In all, 17 other states have minimum wages above the federal level.
Huckabee said he’d prefer that the minimum wage be increased federally and not on a state-by-state basis.
“I wish that it would be addressed on the federal level, that’s what should be happening,” Huckabee said. “But as we all know, Congress is essentially paralyzed.”
The federal minimum wage applies to employers covered by the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act, those businesses that report more than $ 500, 000 annually in revenue.
Arkansas’ minimum wage does not apply to businesses with three or fewer employees, as well as some salaried executives, farm workers, contract laborers or students who are employed by their school.
Bill Vickery, a political consultant who founded a group last week to oppose the minimum wage increase, said he hopes to organize opposition after the increased minimum wage takes effect in October.
He said he hoped to propose “some kind of solution for relief of small businesses that have to pay this raise.”
Petrus said he’d oppose efforts to lower the minimum wage during the 2007 legislative session, which begins in January.
“Anyone can file that kind of bill but I certainly wouldn’t support that,” Petrus said.