Senate Hikes Minimum Wage

February 1, 2007— -- After weeks of debate and parliamentary wrangling, the Senate passed a long-awaited $2.10 increase in the minimum wage by an overwhelming margin of 94-3 -- the first such hike in a decade, though it will be spread over two years.

Raising the minimum wage, usually a rallying cry for more progressive or liberal Democrats, became an unlikely but effective campaign issue in the 2006 midterm elections that, along with voter frustration over the war in Iraq and perceived corruption on Capitol Hill, brought them back in control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 12 years.

A similar bill to increase the minimum wage passed the House of Representatives in January, but that measure did not include tax breaks for small businesses, which have been tacked onto the Senate bill so that it can gain enough votes to overcome Republican opposition.

House and Republican negotiators will have to hammer out a compromise bill before the wage hike can be sent to the President for his signature. Bush has indicated he will sign the legislation as long as it still includes the small business tax breaks added in the Senate.

Accusations of Delay

While the Senate bill eventually gained a majority of Republican and Democratic votes, arguments over the bill's substance have persisted for two weeks. Democrats claim that Republicans purposely held up the bill, attempting to kill the measure with unsuccessful and unrelated "poison pill" amendments that would have doomed its passage.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Republican leaders on Tuesday of stretching out a vote on final passage for the minimum wage hike because, he said, they want to put off debate on a non-binding senate resolution disapproving of President Bush's Iraq policy. Reid has said debate on the Iraq measure will follow the final minimum wage vote.

"Let's talk about the people who are left waiting," said Senator Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., on the Senate floor on Wednesday.