Minimum wage rules obtained come as a surprise to some lawmakers
See David Bennett Lawyer to increase minimum wage to $ 20 by 2030
See rep. David Bennett talk about his minimum wage bill to raise it to $ 20 by 2030.
- The minimum wage will no longer increase unless the general assembly takes action
- The minimum wage hit its peak of $ 15 per hour this year
- Resistance to increased minimum wage increased was harsh
Providence – the long -standing debate of the General Assembly on the minimum wage and its many permutations received its first major broadcast of the session on Wednesday, as the home and Senate committees largely heard business owners bemoan costs.
Some of the minimum wage bills this year will:
- Increase the minimum wage by $ 1 per hour to $ 20 by 2030 (HB 5029, SB 125, SB 310)
- Set the minimum wage to $ 22 per hour (HB 5508)
- Increase the minimum wage marked from $ 3.89 to $ 14.95 by 2030 and do the same with the minimum wage by 2031 (HB 5507)
- Increase the minimum wage marked to $ 6.75 per hour (SB 215)
Last year, the General Assembly took action under the same umbrella, making “local workers” (nanny, serving, butlers, housewives, chefs, au couples, gardeners) employees. This change means that they now have the same rights as any other worker in the state, including to earn the minimum and overtime salary.
The last time lawmakers raised the minimum wage was in 2021, when they decided to grow gradually to $ 15 per hour by this year. Unlike 20 countries, including Connecticut, Rhode Island has no chains to increase future minimum wages in the inflation rate, although the Rhode Island Constitution requires lawmakers to receive salaries in accordance with the cost of living.
None of the bills discussed in the room or the Senate would have mandated the changes of future minimum wages based on inflation or living cost.
Here’s what someone would do, working 40 hours a week, at the various salaries proposed per hour. This calculation does not take into account taxes.
| Per hour | WEEKLY | monthly | yearly |
| $ 15 | $ 600 | $ 2,400 | 31,200 dollars |
| $ 16 | 640 dollars | $ 2,560 | $ 33,280 |
| $ 17 | $ 680 | $ 2,720 | 35,360 dollars |
| $ 18 | $ 720 | $ 2,880 | $ 37,440 |
| $ 19 | $ 760 | $ 3,040 | $ 39,520 |
| $ 20 | $ 800 | $ 3,200 | $ 41,600 |
| $ 22 | $ 880 | $ 3.520 | $ 45,760 |
‘Collective resistance’
Rep. David Morales, D-Providence, said he is disappointed in all restaurant owners, lobbyists and trade groups who come out every year-oppose increases in minimum wage and minimum wage, creating a “collective resistance”.
“I really think there is a happy medium that exists where we can maintain the needs of our small businesses, but at the same time be able to accept that the minimum basic wage should be higher,” he said.
Are you interested in the minimum wage? Read our full primer here.
‘By removing it from small business conceals’
Lobbyist Bob Goldberg said the minimum increase in salary, at $ 20 per hour by 2030, would make it “more difficult for people to get startup work”, force businesses to close and force them to stop spending on things like advertising.
Goldberg said minimum wage jobs are “work at the level of entry for one purpose”, that they are not destined for people to live, but only for “young people to learn a trade”.
While Goldberg complained about potentially higher job costs, employee cuttings, in $ 2004, costs private employers nearly $ 15,000 per employee, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“What are you doing to help small business in this bill? Nothing. It is a one -way road for five years, and there is no opportunity to be heard as the economy develops,” Goldberg said. It represents the Providence Chamber, as well as CVS, FedEx and IgT.
Increasing the minimum wage would address the problem of people who did not make enough money to live in a time of strict rents and inflated prices, damaging small businesses, Goldberg said.
“But the solution to those problems is not removing it from the hiding small business,” he said.
According to a Redfin study, the average providence seeking rent since December was $ 2,145, $ 255 less than the amount of money a current minimum wage worker, working 40 hours a week, earns within a month, before calculating taxes.
Calculating social security (6.2%) and Medicare taxes (1.45%), a total of 7.65%, the average rent required is only $ 72 less than one full -time minimum wage employee earns within one month.
Rhode Island’s living salary is $ 24.24 per hour for a single person according to the lifestyle calculator at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
While a full -time minimum wage worker is not eligible for food or medical stamps because they make a lot of money, they are entitled to the very limited number of limited housing games that state and federal government subsidies, which amount between 80% and 120% of the average area income.
A person who currently makes the minimum wage makes less than 50% of the average area income, making them acceptable for housing coupons or subsidized housing slots.
Who opposes the raising of the minimum wage marked, and why?
Restaurant owners, some servers and lobbyists moved in order to decipher a proposed increase in the minimum marked salary.
According to Bill 5507, presented by Rep. Leonela Felix, D-Pawtucks, the minimum wage marked, currently at $ 3.89, will increase slowly to $ 14.95 by 2031 increasing $ 2, except for a jump of $ 3.06 to $ 6.95 per hour starting from 2026.
In Rhode Island, people who receive tips can be paid at a rate much lower than minimum wage, $ 15. If the tips do not make the difference between the minimum wage scored and the real minimum wage, an employer is supposed to pay them the difference, so they make at least the minimum wage in each given change.
That employers had to pay the change came as a surprise for the Senate Jessica de la Cruz, elected in 2018, who said she had no idea during the hearing of the Senate Committee.
While restaurant owners repeatedly said that all the prone workers make at least the minimum wage, when the Federal Labor Department made a compliance of 9,000 restaurants between 2010 and 2012, 84% of those investigators had work violations; For that cleansing, federal implementation programs received $ 56.8 million in the back salary for 82,000 employees, according to a report by the Institute of Economic Progress based on the correspondence of the emails with the Labor Department.
From the written testimony presented in the room (109 comments), 43% was only for the minimum salary bill, most of it against.
The opposition came from both parties: restaurant owners who do not want to pay higher labor costs and servers who say they make a good salary and fear that raising the minimum wage recorded will result in less.
Those who support the minimum wage scored, such as Alan Krinsky of the Institute of Economic, think that many servers lead a good life from advice, including those who wrote against the bill and testified in the session. However, those servers do not represent most of the prone workers.
“Capt workers are more likely than other workers to live in poverty,” Krinsky wrote in his testimony. “And workers captured in states with a sub-minimal salary are more likely to live in poverty than workers captured in the 8 countries of equal treatment without a special salary.”
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