Increasing Minimum Wage Will Help Working Families

The State Senate voted, 19-13, Tuesday (January 15, 2008) to approve Senate Bill 130, raising the minimum wage from $6.50 per hour to $7.25 per hour and annually indexing the amount for inflation. 

Senator Michael Ellis (R-Neenah) and Dan Kapanke (R-La Crosse) joined 17 Democrats present in supporting the bill.  Senator Judy Robson (D-Beloit) was absent.  The bill now heads to the Republican-controlled Assembly.

In written testimony, WEAC said that increasing the state’s minimum wage from $6.50 per hour to $7.25 per hour and annually indexing the amount for inflation will help working families make ends meet.

WEAC represents 17,000 education support professionals (ESP) - the secretaries, teacher aides, bus drivers, custodians, cooks - employed in public K-12 schools. Many ESP are among those individuals struggling to just get by.

"In 2005, 58% of school districts reported starting wages for food service workers that were below the poverty level. This group was followed by aides, 53% of whom received starting wages that were below the poverty level," according to WEAC's statement. WEAC included the following table:

Source: school district salary wage schedules

WEAC noted that, as important as it is to raise the minimum wage to $7.25, that still falls short of the $9.93 per hour a full-time worker with a family of four would have needed to earn in 2007 to exceed the federal poverty level.

"Raising the minimum wage is an important step to lift all low-end wages so workers can afford basic needs such food, housing, transportation, utilities, childcare, and health care," WEAC said. "It is illogical to pay full-time school year employees such a meager wage that they drain state resources by qualifying for public assistance. This is true of workers in the private sector as well."

Posted January 18, 2008