| Legislature kicks poor while they’re down |
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| Written by Legislature kicks poor while they’re down | ||||||||||||||||||
| Friday, 24 March 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||
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Once again, the Idaho Legislature has shown that making life better for Idahoans is not a high priority. In a House State Affairs Committee Thursday, legislators struck down a bill that would have raised Idaho’s minimum wage from $5.15 (tied for lowest in the nation) to $6.15. The bill also would have indexed the minimum wage to inflation in the future. Opponents of the bill said the minimum wage increase would drive up prices and increase unemployment. However, Idaho residents are in need of a more realistic living wage. Information from www.idahofoodbank.org illustrates Idahoans’ need for higher wages: l Bankruptcies in Idaho rose from 7,119 in 2000 to 9,660 in 2003. This was the ninth highest total in the country, according to the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts. l Idaho has the 11th-highest bankruptcy rate in the country, according to the Center for American Progress. Idaho’s rate is 25 percent higher than the national rate. l Idaho’s welfare laws ranked 51st compared to all other states and Washington, D.C., for their likelihood to help families become self-sufficient. l Of Idaho’s young adults, 29 percent live in poverty, the worst ranking in the nation. l Forty-two percent of Idaho’s children live in low-income working families (Idaho ranks 45th in the country). Twenty-three percent of Idaho’s children have no parent with a full-time, year-round job. l In 2000, the Idaho Legislature ordered the governor to minimize and, if legally possible, eliminate efforts to connect eligible poor people with public benefits, including food stamps and the Child Health Insurance Program. The ban went into effect July 1, 2001, and was upheld by the Legislature in 2002. The legislature seems determined to keep Idaho’s poor as they are: uneducated, under-employed and struggling to make ends meet. A minimum wage raise of $1 could at the very least give some of these people hope for a better life. An October 2005 report from the Idaho Department of Commerce cited in the Lewiston Tribune found that 78.3 percent of the 32,119 Idaho workers who make less than $6.15 an hour are full-time workers. While people working for more than minimum wage would not necessarily get a full dollar-per-hour raise, full-time minimum wage workers could earn about $2,000 more a year with the minimum wage increase. Two thousand dollars isn’t a lot of money, but it could mean the difference between having health insurance and having no coverage. It could mean the difference between dental check-ups for children and rotting teeth. It could mean a family gets to turn up the heat two degrees in the winter instead of bundling up inside. Many of us in Idaho are lucky enough to earn more than minimum wage, or to have been raised by parents who could afford to buy us life’s luxuries or even send us to college. But many aren’t so lucky. Another dollar of pay every hour really doesn’t seem like too much to ask for a chance at a better life. C.M.  Add as favorites (105) | Views: 2464
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