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Youth Minimum Wage: Nebraska Considers Lower Minimum Pay Rate For Young Workers
http://www.ibtimes.com/youth-minimum-wage-nebraska-considers-lower-minimum-pay-rate-young-workers-1907608Just months after voters in five states approved minimum wage hikes by referendum, a couple of state legislatures are moving to rein them in. Nebraska may soon join South Dakota in exempting young employees from new voter-backed pay hikes....
Ebke sponsors legislation that would exempt people who are under 18 and do not have high school diplomas or child dependents from the new wage law. (Under the referendum approved last November, Nebraska’s hourly minimum wage moved to $8 in January, and will hit $9 in 2016.) Her bill creates a separate pay rate for the category of “young student workers.” It would be either $8 an hour, or 85 percent of the federal minimum, whichever is higher. The federal pay floor currently stands at $7.25 an hour, and Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress oppose an increase....
“It targets a politically voiceless group of the population,” said state Sen. Adam Morfeld, who represents northeast Lincoln -- one of the state’s few urban areas. He led an unsuccessful filibuster against the proposal last week. For the bill to reach the desk of Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts, supporters need 33 votes from the unicameral Legislature’s 49 members. That vote could happen as soon as Thursday, and both sides say the head counts are in their favor.
Class issues hover over the debate, too. In the state’s more working-class, urban enclaves of Omaha and Lincoln, young people aren’t always just working for extra spending money or experience. “They’re working to put food on the table,” said Brodey Weber, 17, a junior at Lincoln North Star High School, where he heads the Young Democrats club and has tried to raise awareness of the bill. Weber said dozens of his classmates work minimum-wage jobs -- almost exclusively in fast food and retail -- to help their families make ends meet.
Ebke sponsors legislation that would exempt people who are under 18 and do not have high school diplomas or child dependents from the new wage law. (Under the referendum approved last November, Nebraska’s hourly minimum wage moved to $8 in January, and will hit $9 in 2016.) Her bill creates a separate pay rate for the category of “young student workers.” It would be either $8 an hour, or 85 percent of the federal minimum, whichever is higher. The federal pay floor currently stands at $7.25 an hour, and Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress oppose an increase....
“It targets a politically voiceless group of the population,” said state Sen. Adam Morfeld, who represents northeast Lincoln -- one of the state’s few urban areas. He led an unsuccessful filibuster against the proposal last week. For the bill to reach the desk of Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts, supporters need 33 votes from the unicameral Legislature’s 49 members. That vote could happen as soon as Thursday, and both sides say the head counts are in their favor.
Class issues hover over the debate, too. In the state’s more working-class, urban enclaves of Omaha and Lincoln, young people aren’t always just working for extra spending money or experience. “They’re working to put food on the table,” said Brodey Weber, 17, a junior at Lincoln North Star High School, where he heads the Young Democrats club and has tried to raise awareness of the bill. Weber said dozens of his classmates work minimum-wage jobs -- almost exclusively in fast food and retail -- to help their families make ends meet.
