Assembly panel OKs wage hike

Kirsten Searer

Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005 | 11 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Las Vegas resident Charles Smith asked an Assembly committee Wednesday to raise the minimum wage, saying they don't know what it's like to be "treading water while you see huge ocean liners going by."

"To pass this thing today, it doesn't get me on the boat, but it's a lifeline, something I can hold onto in hopes I can get to dry land and stand up again," said Smith, who made minimum wage as a cook but is now attending the Culinary Institute in hopes of making better money.

The Assembly Committee on Commerce and Labor largely agreed with him, voting for a bill that would raise the minimum wage by $1 to $6.15 an hour, and annually boost the wage based on the consumer price index. The measure now goes to the Assembly floor.

Workers like Smith testified about what it's like to live on minimum wage. There are approximately 51,000 workers in Nevada making the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour, and about 100,000 people in the state making less than $6.15 an hour, said Danny Thompson, executive secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO of Nevada.

Minimum wage workers make less than $11,000 a year, assuming they work 40 hours a week, said Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas. That's 28 percent below the poverty level for a family of three, she said.

Minimum wage workers earn less than they would on welfare, Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said.

"Aren't we trying to move people off of welfare?" he asked.

Smith said he lived paycheck to paycheck, hoping he wouldn't get sick and miss a day of work.

"This is real," he said. "You are one step up from being homeless. If you get sick, if you get the sniffles, you have sneezed away your place to live."

Representatives of several business groups said they weren't opposed to the idea of a minimum wage hike but were concerned about the inflation increases.

Sam McMullen represents the Nevada Restaurant Association and said the inflation increases could put a dent in the revenues of smaller restaurants.

"Ultimately when the restaurant owner cannot cover the cost, they're going to have to pass it on to customers," he said, adding that the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, which he also lobbies for, "shares some of the same concerns."

McMullen did say, however, that he realized that 68 percent of voters passed a similar constitutional amendment to raise the minimum wage in 2004, and that there were 33 co-sponsors on the bill to raise the minimum wage this year.

"We're not here to swim against the current," he said.

Three Republicans on the committee voted against the measure. Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Garnderville, made it clear that he could support raising the minimum wage, but he is concerned about linking it to the consumer price index. He said the bill would receive more bipartisan support without that provision.

The yearly hikes, he said, could begin to overwhelm employers.

"No one guarantees an employer a CPI increase on his return on his investment, on his ability to feed his family," Hettrick said.

Assemblywomen Francis Allen, R-Las Vegas, and Heidi Gansert, R-Reno, also voted against the bill in the Assembly committee.

The constitutional amendment would need to pass again in 2006 to take effect, but the bill legislators are looking at would increase minimum wage this year.

Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, who is chairwoman of the committee, pointed out that some business organizations, such as the Southern Nevada Building and Construction Trades, support the measure.

"I think most employers think it's the right thing to do, that we've just dipped too far below the standard that we'd like to offer," she said.