by Mike Hall, Aug 1, 2006

Republicans in Congress may be playing games with raising the federal minimum wage, but wage advocates at the state level are scoring one win after another in the struggle to ensure hard-working folks are paid a wage they can live on. 

We told you yesterday that the Massachusetts Legislature was poised to vote on overriding Republican Gov. Mitt Romney’s veto of a minimum wage increase. Looks like lawmakers pitched a shutout. The state House voted 152–0 and the Senate tallied up a 38–0 vote last night to kill the veto. That means starting Jan. 1, the state’s minimum wage workers will see their pay jump from $6.75 an hour to $7.50 an hour and to $8 an hour a year later.   

Romney vetoed the bill July 28 after the Legislature refused to raise the wage by only $.25 an hour, per Romney.  

Some 315,000 workers will be affected by the increase. The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center says three out of four of those workers are ages 20 years or older, three of five are women and nearly half work full-time.

Massachusetts is one of about two-dozen states where minimum wage advocates have mobilized to win minimum wage increases through legislation or via ballot initiatives this fall. The AFL-CIO’s America Needs a Raise campaign has mobilized union members and community groups to fight for wage increases to overcome congressional Republicans‘ decade-long fight against increasing the minimum wage. 

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