Let Justice Roll

Federal wage hike in spotlight in '07
By Diane Suchetka
Cleveland Plain Dealer, 11/11/06

Ohio's new minimum wage - $6.85 an hour - kicks in on Jan. 1.

And it could help low-wage workers in 21 other states get a raise as soon as next year.

The Ohio increase, approved by voters Tuesday, was part of a six-state sweep of minimum-wage increases.

And it's pumping momentum into a nine-year effort to raise the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at $5.15 an hour since 1997.

House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi has said she'll make a federal increase a top priority. President Bush has indicated he will work with her on the issue. And Democrats, the biggest supporters of a national raise, now have control of the U.S. House and Senate.

"With the Democrats in control of an issue that's this popular, I think there's little question that something will happen," said Ken Jacobs, chairman of the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California, Berkeley.

"With the Democrats in control, we should expect to see a clean bill," Jacobs said. "And a clean bill is something very few people want to be on the wrong side of."

Last year, Republicans attached a poison pill - tax cuts for the wealthy - to a minimum-wage proposal, which killed it.

It was one of a dozen or so failed attempts to increase the federal wage since 1998.

Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia now have minimums higher than the federal rate, and 10 states, including Ohio, have built in cost-of-living increases to prevent the wage from losing buying power in the future. When it is adjusted for inflation, today's federal minimum wage is lower than it has been in 50 years.

Recent proposals would have raised the federal minimum, over several years, to $7.25 an hour. And that's most likely what lawmakers will propose in 2007, experts say. They also predict, perhaps not immediately, that automatic cost-of-living raises will be attached to the federal wage.

Polls show Americans overwhelmingly support a raise in the minimum wage - by 80 percent or more in some cases. Ohio polls showed more than 70 percent of registered voters in favor of the increase - from $5.15 to $6.85 an hour - approved here this week.

The new momentum for a federal increase will get help from three national groups that were behind this year's state raises.

The AFL-CIO, ACORN - the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families - and a coalition of faith and community groups called Let Justice Roll will each step up their campaigns.

"I think there's powerful momentum for it," said ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan. ACORN representatives from 28 states will gather in Washington, D.C., next week to lobby lawmakers and hold meetings on the issue, he said.

"People have spoken clearly every place they got the chance to," Whelan said. "This is something the vast majority of people think is the right thing to do."

"The momentum that we've been able to build in the states shows that there's a well of support around the country for raising the wages of low-wage people," said the Rev. Paul Sherry of Cleveland, national coordinator of Let Justice Roll.

"And I think that momentum will carry through Congress."

Plain Dealer news researcher Cheryl Diamond contributed to this story. To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: dsuchetk@plaind.com, 216-999-4987

# # #