The following editorial appeared in the New York Daily News on Wed., March 9.For eight years, the federal minimum wage has been $5.15 an hour. That’s eight years without a raise for millions of the working poor, and it’s going to be a good long time before anything is done about it.
Senate Republicans have yet again killed a minimum-wage hike – and they did so while cynically pretending to support one.
The GOP’s refusal to hike the wage while favoring the affluent with tax cuts and other benefits has fueled the perception that the party is concerned more with tending to the interests of those at the top than those at the bottom. And President Bush’s refusal to fight for a wage hike has only solidified the GOP’s favor-the-rich image.
Democrats led by Sen. Ted Kennedy forced the issue to the fore with a proposal to increase the minimum to $7.25 over two years. When that failed to garner a majority, Republican Rick Santorum countered with a boost to $6.25, but his bill was freighted with poison pills, such as an optional end to overtime pay for some workers and the removal of millions of employees from protections of minimum-wage laws. The ploy fooled no one and got even fewer votes than Kennedy’s measure.
So stingy has the national GOP been with low-pay Americans that 15 states, including New York, have voted increases in their state minimum wages.
That’s good for New Yorkers and some others, but Americans in most states are being left behind by the GOP.

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