Thread: OBAMA HIKING MINIMUM PAY FOR NEW FEDERAL CONTRACTS

OBAMA HIKING MINIMUM PAY FOR NEW FEDERAL CONTRACTS

by BREITBART NEWS 28 Jan 2014, 5:25 AM PDT POST A COMMENT
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will sign an executive order setting the minimum wage for workers under new federal contracts at $10.10 an hour, the White House said Tuesday. The president will announce the increase during his State of the Union address.

The increase from a national minimum wage of $7.25 an hour will not affect existing federal contracts, only new ones. Moreover, contract renewals will not be affected unless other terms of the agreement change.

The order would be one of the biggest examples in the State of the Union of Obama's vow to use presidential authority to push for policies by circumventing Congress.

Obama has been under pressure from liberal groups and employee advocates to use his executive authority to raise the minimum pay for federal contractors. By limiting the increase to new contracts, the order would affect far fewer employees than if it applied to all government contractors.

Still, the issue dovetails with what will be Obama's broader call for Congress to increase the national minimum wage to $10.10 and tie future increases to inflation. Obama called last year for an increase in the minimum wage to $9. This year he is lending his support to legislation sponsored by Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. Their bill also would raise the minimum wage for tipped workers for the first time in more than two decades.
Increasing the wage for federal contractors does not require congressional action.

The White House said those who would benefit from the executive order include federally contracted janitors and construction workers as well as workers in military bases who wash dishes, serve food and do laundry.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...eral-contracts

ECONOMIC POLICY

Obama to sign executive order raising minimum wage for federal contractors

Published January 28, 2014 FoxNews.com

President Obama, in the first of potentially many executive actions tied to his State of the Union address, will unilaterally increase the minimum wage for workers under new federal contracts to $10.10 an hour, from $7.25, in an effort to build momentum for a minimum wage hike for all Americans.

The executive order, which had been pushed by progressive Democratic lawmakers, applies to all contractors performing services for the federal government and would affect more than 2 million employees, according to an administration official.

The president will then use Tuesday night's address to press Congress to pass a Democratic plan to increase the overall federal wage to $10.10 over three years, then indexing it to inflation, while also raising the minimum wage for tipped workers, the official said.

Critics of the minimum wage push claim that raising the rate could have an adverse effect, discouraging businesses from hiring more workers at a time when the government is trying to spur job growth.

"The minimum wage is mostly an entry level wage for young people," Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell told "Fox News Sunday." "We have a crisis in employment among young people right now, and generation 18 to 30, people that got out of college, are finding there are no jobs for them. The last thing we want to do is have even fewer jobs for younger people."

But the president is reviving the issue as he tries to focus again on the economy. Obama, who does not have the power to unilaterally raise the minimum wage for private sector workers, also used last year's State of the Union speech to call for a federal minimum wage hike.

“Let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty and raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour,” the president said to applause in his 2013 address.

The new executive order affects only future contracts, not existing ones, and would only apply to contract renewals if other terms of the agreement changed. As a result, the order would benefit far fewer workers than the number foreseen by advocates of federal contract employees.

House Speaker John Boehner downplayed the impact the latest executive order would have. "Let's understand something: this affects not one current contract, it only affects future contracts with the federal government. And so I think the question is, how many people, Mr. President will this executive action actually help? I suspect the answer is somewhere close to zero," he said Tuesday.

In December, Reps. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., co-chairmen of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, wrote the president urging him to take the "bold step" of signing an executive order to increase wages for federal contractors, GovExec.com reported.

At the time, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney issued a lukewarm response when asked about the lawmakers' request, according to the report.
“This has always been done legislatively. And it has been done with support from Republicans and not just Democrats in the past,” Carney said.

Obama, in an effort to avoid the appearance of being a lame duck president, is expected to use Tuesday's State of the Union address to make clear his intentions to use his executive powers to achieve his goals when Congress fails to pass legislation.

Minimum wage is a perennial issue that has taken on a higher profile amid the slowly recovering economy and growing public debate about income inequality. A Quinnipiac University poll this month found 71 percent of Americans in favor of raising the minimum wage — including more than half of Republicans polled.

Five states passed minimum wage measures last year, and advocates hope that number will grow as states from New Hampshire to Washington consider proposals. Many would push families above the federal poverty line, which is $15,730 for a family of two. In Iowa, a bill would hike the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10.

Democrats across the political spectrum have lobbied for a higher minimum wage this year, after Obama got the ball rolling on the issue by calling for an increase in his February budget speech. Since then, union-organized demonstrations in front of profitable mega-chains such as Wal-Mart and McDonald's have kept it in the public eye.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014...o-state-union/

RELATED

http://www.alipac.us/f19/conservativ...fornia-292857/

11/25/2013

. . . significantly raising the minimum wage would help curb government spending on social services, strengthen the economy and make more jobs attractive to American-born workers.

“There are so many very low-wage workers, and we pay for huge social welfare programs for them,” he said in an interview. “This would save something on the order of tens of billions of dollars. Doesn’t it make more sense for employers to pay their workers than the government?” . . .

President Cuts Military Pay & Raises Pay for Union Workers

By: Erick Erickson
January 28th, 2014

The President is going to raise the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10 per hour.This increase will only apply to new workers on government contracts and will happen over time.
He is doing it by Executive Order.

This will affect other workers whose pay is set through union contracts based on the prevailing wage for federal contracts. It’ll be slow, but it will happen all without Congress.

Contrast with what the President and a bipartisan coalition in Congress just supported — cutting pensions of retired military servicemen and women. Even Paul Ryan defended the cuts.Congress and the President were both willing to renege on promises to those who risked their lives for the country.

But federal contractors within the leviathan will get a pay raise as the President tries to make a minimum wage a living wage.

http://www.redstate.com/2014/01/28/p...union-workers/

—Vermont: A bill in the House would raise the minimum wage to $12.50 in 2015, while a bill in the Senate would boost it to $12 per hour in 2016. Both would adjust it for inflation afterward.

—Washington: A bill would increase what is already the highest state minimum wage in the nation to $12 an hour over the next three years.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/...?#article-copy

The U.S. has a $7.25 minimum wage.
Australia’s is $16.88

By Dylan Matthews, Published: August 19 at 2:49 pm

Minimum wage advocates love to point to Australia’s $16.88 an hour minimum as evidence that a very high wage floor needn’t stifle a country’s growth. After all, Australia hasn’t had a recession in 20 years. But Australia is hardly an outlier.

Most developed countries have a higher minimum wage than we do, . . .

http://www.alipac.us/f9/%2416-88-minimum-wage-285809/

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