Editorial: The poor get poorer

Sunday, Oct. 23, 2005 | 10:19 a.m.

Last November voters approved Question 6, which would amend the state Constitution to provide for small but steady increases in the minimum wage. Employees earning the minimum wage now gross $5.15 an hour, an amount that matches the federally guaranteed minimum that has remained constant since 1997. Question 6 calls for an immediate increase of a dollar an hour, and annual cost-of-living increases after that of up to 3 percent. Voters will have to approve the measure again in November 2006 for the increase to take place.

Minimum wage earners here can take heart that Nevadans approved the question by a more than 2-1 margin. That's an indication that a second approval has a good chance. By all appearances, the state's voters are their only chance of ever inching even a bit toward a living wage, which in Nevada is now $14 an hour. A bill in the 2005 Legislature, which, if approved, would have increased the minimum wage effective this month, died in a conference committee between the Senate and the Assembly.

And last week a bill in the U.S. Senate backed by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., was defeated, 51-47. Kennedy's bill would have raised the minimum wage to $6.25 an hour -- a paltry $13,000 a year. Even a Republican alternative to Kennedy's bill, which would have given the same increase but coupled it with tax breaks for small businesses, was shot down, 57-42.

The Senate's votes effectively erase any hope in the foreseeable future for a federal increase. This is disgraceful. Since 1997, when it set the current minimum wage, members of Congress have voted themselves seven pay increases worth a total of $28,000 in additional compensation. Congress has also approved massive tax cuts for rich Americans and numerous tax breaks for big businesses. It is an outrage that it won't approve even a small increase for working people earning wages below the poverty line.