Sub-minimum wage
Bid to Raise Minimum Wage Dies in Virginia
RICHMOND, Feb. 7 -- Virginia lawmakers have rejected efforts to raise the state's minimum wage, which has remained $5.15 an hour since 1997.Good numbers? You call $206 a week and $10,712 a year good numbers?
Virginia's wage is tied to the federal minimum rate, but after years of waiting for Congress to boost the salary nationally, two Northern Virginia legislators had urged their colleagues to raise it at the state level. Eighteen states, including Maryland, along with the District, have adopted a higher minimum wage than the federal government mandates.
[snip]Business groups had opposed the twin measures, asserting that increasing the minimum wage would put Virginia at a competitive disadvantage with states that stick by the federal number. They said too that larger payroll costs would force businesses to cut jobs.
Hugh D. Keogh, president and chief executive of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, said the two votes illustrate important differences between Virginia and Maryland, where lawmakers recently passed a minimum wage increase over a veto by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R).
"We have a very different business climate here and a very different posture toward business," he said.
Virginia's low unemployment rate, the second best in the nation, indicates that the state's business environment has produced desired results, he said. "These are good numbers," Keogh said.
Activists presented statistics to the House subcommittee from states where the wage has been raised, indicating that businesses elsewhere had not suffered. And the director of a Norfolk shelter for the homeless told delegates that she regularly serves patrons who are unable to afford a place to live, even though they work full time at minimum wage.
"I can't look at a family anymore and say work is a path out of homelessness," said Thaler McCormick, executive director of ForKids.
This has nothing to do with staying competitive or losing jobs. It's about greed, plain and simple. And the fine folks in the Virginny legislature are just fine with that.
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