Colorado's minimum wage becomes 1st in US to drop

[totodeinhere]

Source: AP

Colorado's minimum wage will drop slightly in the new year — the first decrease in any state's minimum wage since the federal minimum was adopted in 1938.

Colorado's wage is falling 3 cents an hour, from $7.28 to the federal level of $7.25. That's because Colorado is one of 10 states that tie the state minimum wage to inflation. The goal is to protect low-wage workers from having unchanged paychecks as the cost of living goes up.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/yayowoe

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Social security recipients aren't getting a raise in 2010, and now minimum wage workers in Colorado are taking a pay cut, albeit a small one.

[Donnachaidh]

1. there should NOT be any way to drop the minimum wage

That's just f*cking outrageous.

[SoCalNative]

2. Unbelievable

EOM

[LouKneeLib]

3. Hmmm.

Corporate whores stealing ~$1.20 from the poor. How am I not surprised? Sickening.

[evan2]

4. See, there's no evidence of inflation in Colorado, because

the cost of life's most basic essentials aren't included in the definition. Hate to inform everyone of this, but that definition
came into play during the Clinton/Lewinsky/Hillary Administration.

[notadmblnd]

7. with a republican controlled congress.

you left that out.

[Threedifferentones]

37. And now a Democratic Congress continues the fine tradition of fucking poor people.

You left that out.

[BulletproofLandshark]

13. You'll have to blend in a little better than that. n/t

[sakabatou]

5. WTF?!

[bluestateguy]

6. Blame the drafters of the law

The law says that the minimum wage was to be indexed to inflation, which progressives have always supported. Perhaps a provision should have been inserted to state that the wage was never to go down, like Social Security payments are fixed this way.

[davidpdx]

9. True, it sure need to be amended to fix that

Thank god the rate wasn't higher and the drop wasn't more. If they fix it this year, they could probably amend it to add back the difference (although not retroactively).

[Arctic Dave]

8. Sorry to hear that for Coloradans, Alaska's is set to go up this year.

Still, it isn't going to get you on the cover of Forbes.

[New Dawn]

10. Meanwhile, the super-rich get more bailouts.

[intheflow]

11. I knew about the Social Security not getting a raise, but lowering the minimum wage

is barbaric. That's a pay cut, not holding the same income. We are balancing the national budget on the back of the least among us while corporations steal trillions from the treasury.
WTF, America?!
:wtf:

[zogofzorkon]

14. A lower minimun wage means higher employment.

If the wage could be reduced 50% companies could hire twice as many people and still afford those CEO salaries and bonuses. With twice as many people having jobs there would be a doubling of demand for goods and services leading to an increase in corporate profits some of which could pay for a wage increase.

See lowering the minimum wage is good. It leads to increased employment and more money for everyone. You just have to look at it right and maybe have a quart of Kool Aid.

[haele]

15. Minimum wage doesn't "depress" employment -

lack of customers depress employment. At the low range of the scale, hiring enough people to do the job as required by the business is almost negligible. There are very, very few businesses that can't hire enough low wage people to do the work needed because the minimum wage is too high. In fact, most businesses that use minimum wage workers - retail and restaurant - have always been able to hire as many as needed when there was work to support them. I've never heard "I really need another cashier or busser, but darn that minimum wage, I just can't afford to hire one..." I've heard "Business is down, so I don't need another employee on the floor and have to start letting people go - let's start with the more expensive full-timers"
Benefits and other employer costs for full-time workers - no matter how much they are paid - cost a company more than 20 cents of minimum wage. Heck, overhead and administrative costs per employee cost a company more than even $2.00 an hour of wage would. It's "full time worker" rather than "minimum wage" worker.

The issue you're looking at when looking at minimum wage workers is "livable wage". Can you expect a worker to be able to live on $3.50 an hour before taxes for a 40 hour work week - I'm not even talking about health bennies or the other things that workers have won since the days of the robber barons - but just the wage.
Minimum wage jobs are not for teens, college students, or "housewives looking for pin money" any more - the person working minimum wage at your local Dollar Store might be a laid of IT professional who can't move out of the area and is trying to survive until the economy picks up.

That $7.50 an hour minimum wage job may be the difference for a single parent to be able to keep a roof over his or her family's head and still be a quality parent.

Even at $4.00 an hour, 40 hours a week, after taxes, a minimum wage worker is just a little over enough for a cheap monthly car payment and the insurance that goes with it. It certainly isn't enough to pay rent in most areas of the country, not to mention cover utilities or buy groceries. That's why the only jobs where wages are allowed to be as low as $3.00 an hour are understood to be tip or commission jobs, where it's expected that the employee will more than make up the difference towards minimum wage or higher on the tips or the commission.
And they and their employers get taxed accordingly.

If your average minimum wage employer doesn't want to pay minimum wage to "employ more people" at basically "mad money" wages, he or she can just cut hours and everyone to part-time, and not have to pay benefits or some of the other overhead to hire one or two more people. And still pay minimum wage while making a better profit than they did with fewer employees all working full time.


On Edit - Oopsie, didn't see you were being sarcastic. Carry on, I just have a knee-jerk reaction to Liberatrian Drivel, even if it's being used as a joke.

Haele

[totodeinhere]

23. There have been no studies that back up that claim.

But even if it were true, which it is not, what good is higher employment if the employment does not provide a decent livable wage?

[conspirator]

34. I assume of course that your post is sarcastic nt

[sandnsea]

16. They're both tied to COLA, Oregon is too

and will be going down too, last I heard. If you want the minimum wage to be tied to cost of living, you have to accept it might go down sometimes too.

[ldf]

12. i'm sure, once it is done

many in other states will be itching to see if they can justify (read manipulate) the numbers to do the same.

as long as they aren't the first to do it, they would have no qualms about piling on the bandwagon...

[valerief]

17. As long we have trillions for war and the super-rich don't have to pay a dime more. nt

[daughter of liberty2]

18. Disgusting.

:puke:

[hayu_lol]

19. I always hate it when discussions like this one...

continue with the 'old saws' about if the '...minimum wage was lower' nonsense then everything would be just fine. People make less at the bottom of the food chain so that employers will hire more workers and there will be more of a demand for goods/services. That myth should be permanently put to rest in the nearest 'marble orchard.' States can also change their laws so that the minimum wage is higher than the federal minimums. Many states have done so already. The Feds are actually the last to go up. At least the Blue states generally have higher than minimum wages than the Red states.

Many states(Oregon is one)pay restaurant workers full minimum wage and the tips are above that. Makes a real difference.

Seems as if a lot of posters here on this, and other sites, have not got the message that unless wages are living wages--there is no point in workers taking the jobs.

The former CEO of Cigna recently left his job with a golden parachute of 79 million dollars. When a worker-bee leaves a job...they generally get what is coming to them and zip else.

Hurts to be unemployed, hurts worse to work for less than it costs you to take the job.

Colorado and other states should protect their workforce by revisiting the law as its written.

[boppers]

20. Same wage, different numbers.

Devalue the dollar, devalue the wage.

Pretty basic math.

[CaliCompadre]

21. What a silly law

People on minimum wage can hardly afford anything. If anything, they need MORE money.

[proudohioan]

22. Conveniently, food and gasoline are not counted in the inflation index.

Go figure! As if anyone could live off minimum wage anyhow!

[Synicus Maximus]

24. Colorado's minimum wage becomes 1st in US to drop

Source: AP

DENVER (AP) - Colorado's minimum wage will drop slightly in the new year - the first decrease in any state's minimum wage since the federal minimum was adopted in 1938.

Colorado's wage is falling 3 cents an hour, from $7.28 to the federal level of $7.25. That's because Colorado is one of 10 states that tie the state minimum wage to inflation. The goal is to protect low-wage workers from having unchanged paychecks as the cost of living goes up.

But Colorado's provision also allows wage declines, and the state's consumer price index fell 0.6 percent last year, so the minimum wage is going down.

Read more: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091231/D9CUH2C01.html

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The poor keep getting poorer.

[Robb]

25. Man but we write good legislation, don't we?

Och. This has the same smell as TABOR's ratchet effect.

[geckosfeet]

26. I think that I will tie my work efforts to the inflation rate. Or better yet,

the fed lending rate.

[niyad]

27. that was the first thing I saw in the paper this morning. happy new year, CO

[Vincardog]

28. Just think how CO will look when the Hyperinflation hits

[OnlinePoker]

30. Legislation will change

As soon as hyperinflation hits, you can bet that businesses will cry to the government over the high cost of labor and the politicians will cave to their demands to limit this. I remember when Trudeau brought in wage and price controls to Canada in the 70's to combat the inflation of the first Arab oil embargo. The only thing controlled was the wages. Prices just kept on rising.

[David__77]

33. I think those days are over here.

Wage and price controls have probably been abandoned as macroeconomic tools here.

[Aristophrenia]

31. There will not be any inflation for some time -

There is still a credit crisis going on - the money from the bailouts etc has not caused - and will not cause inflation.
We are seeing a bubble in commodities and real estate in asia - when this bursts there will only be deflation - this will come in the
form of debt deleveraging.

The only exception to this will be in food - expect food to be an expensive commodity - the crops are failing.

[scentopine]

29. Maybe we need to index wages against Wall Street pay -nt

[crazylikafox]

36. +1

[pundaint]

32. Lucky Colorado, employment will surely soar there now.

[donco6]

35. Our schools are looking at a 6.12% cut in funding next year.

Not a cut in the *increase* in funding, a real cut in year to year funding. Many districts are closing schools, raising class sizes, laying off staff, hiring freezes. Parents won't see it until their kids show up in a classroom with 29 other kids and there's nowhere to fit another desk.