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Congress Could Pass Minimum Wage Hike This Week |
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The new Congress is expected this week to raise America’s minimum wage for the first time in a decade. At the same time, the House sent a message to corporate CEOs that shareholders should have a say in how much executives are paid, a change the AFL-CIO has strongly backed. Senate Republicans have held up the increase by insisting on tax breaks for business as part of the package. Members of the House and Senate announced last Friday they reached agreement on $4.8 billion in tax relief for small businesses that will be paired with a minimum wage increase.
The House passed a bill Jan. 10 that would have boosted the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25, without another round of tax breaks for business. Senate Republicans filibustered the House bill for a week in January, using Senate rules to force minimum wage backers to win 60 votes instead of a simply 51 majority and then killing the House bill on Jan. 24. By killing the House bill, Senate Republicans forced Senate Democrats to add $8.3 billion in business tax breaks. They then refused to allow the combined minimum wage and tax package to move to a conference with the House unless and until the House produced its own package of tax cuts for business.
The new bill will be added to the supplemental spending bill (H.R. 1591) conference report, which is expected to come to the floor in both houses later this week.
House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) says this is the final package of small business tax cuts:
We have reached final resolution—and I mean final—on a package of small business tax credits that will enable us to pass the first increase in the federal minimum wage in nearly a decade.
Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) says:
It’s past time to get a pay increase on the ground for America’s minimum wage workers.
Meanwhile, the House on April 20 let America’s top corporate executives know it’s time to give shareholders a say on executive pay. By a 269 to 134 margin, the House passed H.R. 1257, which had the support of working people and their unions. The bill, introduced by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), requires public companies to put the pay packages of a company’s five top executives before shareholders each year for a nonbinding vote.
Frank says:
We don’t think boards of directors will lightly disregard an advisory opinion from the shareholders.
According to the AFL-CIO’s 2007 Executive PayWatch website, the average CEO of a Standard & Poor’s 500 company made $14.78 million in total compensation last year. This year, the PayWatch site includes some of the executive compensation data required under new rules issued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The new disclosure rules go further than ever before in revealing just how much executives are paid, making transparent previously hard-to-find information such as pension totals.
For more on the “say on pay” vote, click here.
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