WASHINGTON — More twists and turns seem likely in the push by Democrats for the first minimum wage increase in a decade.
The proposal is in limbo after the House on Friday passed a $124 billion supplemental funding bill that would finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and also raise the federal hourly wage to $7.25 from $5.15 over two years.
Although approval gave some fresh momentum to a wage-increase initiative, the measure’s prospects for passage in the Senate as part of an emergency spending bill appear slim. President Bush has said he would veto the House legislation because it includes a deadline for troop withdrawal from Iraq.
The House and Senate have passed separate minimum-wage bills this year that have languished because negotiators failed to make progress in convening a conference committee to iron out differences on the issue of tax breaks for small businesses. The House had first passed a minimum wage bill that did not include the tax breaks.
Industry officials said House leaders might have applied enough political pressure on minimum wage with its inclusion in the war supplemental to jump-start the conference committee.
Rob Green, vice president of government and political affairs at the National Retail Federation, which opposes a straight minimum wage increase but supports an increase tied to the business tax breaks, said, “We still feel there is an opportunity for the House and Senate to get together on the [minimum-wage and tax-break] legislation that passed previously. Obviously, there are still a few more chapters in this book.”
Tom Snyder, national political director for UNITE HERE, called the House leaders’ move a “well-worn legislative tactic to attach a piece of legislation to a high-priority bill such as a war supplemental” as a possible way of bypassing a conference committee on the minimum-wage and tax differences.
“If they have to go into a conference over the war supplemental, the pressure is on and that has to get done quickly,” Snyder said. “It sounds like an effort [on the part of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House leaders] to get action taken on minimum wage quicker rather than later. Unfortunately, millions of people’s paychecks depend on this. It’s been more than 10 years, so it is good that they are finally acting. But it is [frustrating] that this maneuvering has to take place for something so important.”