To Be Announced...

A reader sent this:

Workers welcome wage boost

Elizabeth Lipp, a 21-year-old single mother from Sedalia, was working two jobs at $5.15 an hour when the raise took effect. She is a hotel housekeeper through the week and a nurse's aide at Rest Haven Convalescent and Retirement Home on weekends.

"Getting by on $5.15 was a struggle. I pay out $75 a week alone just for child care. You have to make every cent count, and everything had to go for something good," Ms. Lipp said.

Ohhhh...close, but no cigar. It's a possible entry in the Minimum Wage Contest, but from Missouri. Just the kind of entry I'd love to find in Iowa to claim the prize money.

I was somewhat excited about receiving it because the emailer said they had an entry in the contest and I saw Sedalia in the title and thought maybe that was a little town in Iowa I had never heard of. Nevertheless:

Ms. Lipp, who lives with her mother, said she "wants her kid to have everything," and that it is important to her to not be "just some welfare mom." She said that she would use some of the raise to help her mom with bills and to pay off her car, and would save the rest. She hopes to move out on her own by November.

That would also be a disqualification because Mom is the main breadwinner there. Also in the story is another family member who earns the minimum wage, but doesn't meet the "full time" status in the rules:

Her sister, Regiena Lipp, a 20-year-old State Fair Community College student, works about 30 hours a week at Stage clothing store in Sedalia. She said she was excited when the measure passed. "It was about time," she said. She was hired seven months ago at $5.50 an hour, and received a raise to $5.65 two months ago. She said the added money would be "a lot of help."

Besides, it seems she got a raise on her own...without the government doing it for her.

Next?

Debate on minimum wage, tax-relief report are on tap

Iowa lawmakers don't seem to want to campaign on the issue much more than just this year. Instead, they've introduced a provision in the Iowa minimum wage to make another raise automatic every year after...

A bill sponsored by Senate Democrats would automatically adjust the minimum wage for inflation, which would ratchet up the wage beyond $7.25 an hour in future years.

Good, because it's a terrible pain to have employees asking for raises on their own every year. Now that it's expected and automatic, they won't have to read any of those self-help books on how to go about improving yourself.

Next? Newspapers can seem to find minimum wage earners all the time who are supporting families. Where do they get such people? From the Kansas City Star...

Minimum-wage increase will be a big help for many

Peggy Fraley, a 60-year-old grandmother from Wichita, works as a receptionist and earns the minimum wage — $5.15 an hour.

So does her 37-year-old daughter, Karla Kimminau, a food service worker. Together, with Karla’s five children, ages 6 to 17, they are a family struggling to afford the basic necessities.

“We can barely make it,” Fraley said. “But we’ve got each other. That’s richer sometimes.”

5 children? Yikes. I would probably bend the rules and allow these two to be entrants in the contest, but again, they're from a different state. But the story has all kinds of other juicy tidbits...

The immediate beneficiaries would be nearly 2 million people who earn $5.15 per hour or less, according to federal labor data from 2005. That included 27,000 workers in Kansas and 56,000 in Missouri that year.

But those numbers don’t account for the workers who earn between $5.15 and $7.25 an hour. Some studies estimate that with them included, 6 million or more would feel the impact.

Nevermind the businesses who are sure to "feel the impact." Sure, they're excited about getting a raise. Who wouldn't be?

But the overall impact, he said, “is very hard to measure and predict.”

Not for Fraley. A $2.10 increase in the minimum wage “would be a big help, providing everything else doesn’t go up $2,” she said. “It’s a struggle.”

Well, maybe Democrats can fix those prices too...

Labels: minimum wage