Colorado's Minimum Wage Becomes 1st In US To Drop

[Purveyor]

(12-31) 10:29 PST 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.

The lower consumer price index, attributed to lower fuel prices, would have forced the wage down 4 cents an hour, But no state can go below the federal minimum of $7.25.

Thirteen other states and the District of Columbia will keep a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum, according to the U.S. Labor Department. Alaska will join them Friday when its minimum wage rises 50 cents to $7.75.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/31/national/a085250S33.DTL

[DJ13]

1. What a load of crap

Same BS the Feds pulled with Social Security.

And yet, the federal government is giving themselves a 2.5% wage increase due to rising cost of living.

[elifino]

2. Plus step increases

[FLDCVADem]

3. Different laws n/t

[DJ13]

4. I know, but they use the sexed up inflation figures that exclude anything volatile

.... in prices to keep the neediest from feeling the effects of inflation, and its not right.

[FLDCVADem]

5. I can see not raising it

But I don't think minimum wage, either federal or state, should ever drop.

[Greyhound]

6. The CPI has been so well-massaged for so long that it is meaningless.

The baseline is gone and without a baseline none of these measures (CPI, GDP, inflation, unemployment, etc.) have any meaning whatsoever.

The feds used this sham to deny SS recipients their increase this year, too.

[FLDCVADem]

7. Military retirees as well n/t

[mountainvue]

8. Nothing in this state is less expensive than it used to be.

Not to mention there is a contingent in this state that hates organized labor.

[Lucky Luciano]

9. There other day I was questioning the validity of the CPI

I have done no empirical work to ever question the validity, but one thing I wonder about, for example with food (a volatile component of course) is that quality of the food basket used in the CPI may deteriorate. One small example - I decided that I wanted a real jar of maple syrup for when my girlfriend cooks pancakes on the weekend. When I went to the store to buy syrup, I saw that I could buy 24oz of syrup for $5 or so. I imagined to myself that the price probably had not changed much over the last ten years and was consistent with whateer the CPI was. Then I looked at the ingredients and saw the main ingredients were corn syrup or liquid sugar or some other supser sweet syrupy concotion - but none of them contained actual maple syrup. When I was a kid, we had maple syrup as pancake syrup. Then I found a 13oz jar of maple syrup - for $14. There are, no doubt, many other examples like this where artifical replaces natural or cheaper crappier ingredients replace quality ingredients, but no adjustment is made for this in the CPI. The CPI would recognize only the change in price of pancake syrup as opposed to the change in price of maple syrup.

On the contrary (thinking as I am typing), cars, are higher quality as is anything that technological device such as computers, musical devices, etc, so you do get more bang for your buck there. Maybe the whole damn thing is a wash and CPI is a good measure if you are not poor (because the poor are more affected by the volatile energy/food prices).

rambling, so I will stop

[Greyhound]

10. This was the intent for "reforming" (funny how that word has come to mean 'making it worse') the

fixed basket. Remove the baseline and your results will never vary beyond a narrow range.