Contacts:
Ethnie Groves, Office of the Governor, 608-261-2156
Rose Lynch, Department of Workforce Development,
608-266-6753
Governor Says Raise Long Overdue for Wisconsin’s Working Families;
Increase Supported Overwhelmingly by Both Business and Labor
At a news conference at the site of a food pantry in Madison
today, Governor Jim Doyle urged Republican lawmakers to join with business
and labor leaders, and approve a long overdue increase in the state’s
minimum wage. The increase is supported unanimously by business and labor
representatives on a Minimum Wage Advisory Council appointed by the
Governor. Only two members of the Council voted against the increase – both
Republican lawmakers.
Last raised in 1997, Wisconsin’s minimum wage is $5.15 an
hour.
“This week, Republicans in the Legislature have a choice,”
Governor Doyle said. “They can stand with business and labor, who have
unanimously supported an increase in the minimum wage – or they can stand
against the hundreds of thousands of working poor in Wisconsin, and block
this long-overdue increase. It has been seven years since the minimum wage
has been increased, and it is time to give these workers the raise they
deserve.”
Earlier this year, at the direction of the Governor, the
Department of Workforce Development (DWD) advanced an administrative rule
that would increase the hourly minimum wage to $5.70 this year and $6.50
next year. The two-step increase will benefit an estimated 200,000
Wisconsin citizens working minimum wage or low wage jobs, many of them
single mothers, who are turning increasingly to food pantries to help feed
their children.
A few Republican lawmakers have used their positions of
power to block the first increase in seven years, said the Governor, flanked
by members of a broad coalition for the working poor at the First United
Methodist Church in Madison. In late July, Senator Tom Reynolds of West
Allis, chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, abruptly put the rule to a
vote without a public hearing. The committee objected to the rule on a 3-2
party-line vote.
On Thursday, the Legislature’s Joint Committee for Review of
Administrative Rules will decide whether to let the increase take effect, or
join the Senate Labor Committee in objecting to the DWD rule.
“I am urging Republican lawmakers to stand together with
business and labor and support this increase,” Governor Doyle said. “A
single mother should not have to stop at a food pantry after work to feed
her children. Our children should not go hungry or suffer from poor
nutrition because their parents work full-time, but still don’t earn enough
to make ends meet. These workers deserve better, and we have the means to
help them better provide for themselves and their families.”
An estimated 200,000 Wisconsin citizens currently work in
minimum wage or low wage jobs. While many are young people, nearly half are
over 25 years of age. Nearly two out of every three are women. More often
than not, they are single parents, struggling to support themselves and
their children. And, while many are part-time workers, almost one-third
work full time at the minimum wage.
