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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsVermont Passes The Highest State Minimum Wage In The Country
Vermonts minimum wage will rise from $8.73 to $10.50 over the next four years under a bill that won final passage just before the legislative session ended on Saturday. The measure puts Vermont on track to have the highest minimum wage of any state in 2018, higher than a handful of states whose pay floors will rise to $10.10 under laws approved this year.
I will be proud to sign it, Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) said of the bill. The final version will phase in the higher wage in order to win nearly unanimous support in both chambers. The states minimum wage was already indexed to inflation.
The Green Mountain state is the seventh to enact a minimum wage hike this year and the fourth to crack the $10 mark. Delaware and West Virginia lawmakers raised their wages above $8 an hour. Minnesota raised the minimum wage for most large companies to $9.50. And Hawaii, Maryland, and Connecticut each established $10.10 minimum wages.
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http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/05/12/3436853/vermont-minimum-wage-highest/
Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)Good luck till then. And by then, you'll need $12.00 an hour to survive, and that's just eeking by. I started a job in 1989 and got $8.00 and hour. 25 fucking years ago. This is going to affect a lot of people when they collect SSI. All that time and money you didn't earn because of these assholes year after year.
cali
(114,904 posts)and in VT if you make minimum wage, your kids will be covered medically and so will you- and you'll get food stamps.
I know, I've been there.
trublu992
(489 posts)what the hell are they so afraid of when it comes to raising the minimum wage?
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)Who have clawed there way up from minimum wage.
BlindTiresias
(1,563 posts)So they are basically afraid of fictions, then?
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)It's EASY to be confident when it's all theory, but when real people's lives and jobs and businesses are on the line the theories start to sound as substantial as unicorn giggles-- or Republican faerie tales, only the opposite Democratic party version. And that's something to keep in mind, because the theories which give you supreme confidence are just that. The economists you hear spouting them also thought NAFTA sounded like a great idea at the time. Krugman and Reich, champions of aggressive minimum wage increases not only supported NAFTA, they both support giving it another go with the TPP. Neither of them warned of the housing and banking collapse prior to it happening-- the loudest voices warning about that were assholes like Peter Schiff. He was right, and damn near every other 'expert' on the planet, including the guys urging states to go crazy on the minimum wage, were wrong.
Economics might use lots of math, but it's damn sure not a science. It's more a religion. It comes closest to being a science down where the metal hits the meat, at that small corner store or Walmart where the customers and business owners and employers live. It's not theory down there, but none of them have megaphones so you have to actually listen.
surrealAmerican
(11,364 posts)... which is why the minimum needs to be raised for the whole nation.