The U.S. Congress on Thursday approved a $2.10 increase in the minimum wage, the first federal increase in nearly a decade. President George W. Bush is expected to sign the bill quickly, and workers who now make $5.15 an hour will see their paychecks go up by 70 cents per hour before the end of the summer. Another 70 cents will be added next year, and by summer 2009, all minimum-wage jobs will pay no less than $7.25 an hour. The increase was attached to the controversial Iraq war funding bill, which passed the House of Representatives by 280-142 and the Senate by 80-14. Senator Edward Kennedy (Democrat from Massachusetts) called the increase one of “the proudest achievements of this new Congress.” “We've overcome many obstacles - and faced every procedural trick in the book - to get this minimum-wage increase across the finish line,” Kennedy said. “Democrats stood together, and stood firm, to say that no one who works hard for a living should have to live in poverty.” The White House said it supports the increase, but criticized the absence of protective measures for small businesses. “We pushed for and very much prefer that it be paired with appropriate offsets for small businesses who would be disproportionately impacted by the minimum-wage increase,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. “Unfortunately, the offsets in this bill don't accomplish that.” This would be the first change since the minimum wage went from $4.75 to $5.15 on Sept. 1, 1997, under former President Bill Clinton and a Republican-controlled Congress. More than two dozen states and the District of Columbia already have minimum wages higher than the federal level, and a federal increase was a key part of Democrats' midterm election platform. To help make it palatable for Republicans, they added $4.84 billion in tax relief for small businesses to help them hire new workers and offset any cost associated with an increase in the minimum wage.
