Proposals to raise the state minimum wage are on their way to the House and Senate floors for a vote.
The House Finance Committee on Wednesday passed a bill that would raise the minimum wage from $5.25 an hour to $5.50 in July 2002. The measure would also raise the minimum wage to $6 in 2003.
The Senate Ways and Means committee passed a measure to raise the wage to $5.75 in 2002 and to $6.25 in 2004.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Brian Taniguchi, D-11th (McCully, MØ‘ili‘ili, Manoa), said the timing of the minimum wage increase bill was intended to help businesses prepare for the higher costs. He said the bill was a way to balance the interests of the working poor and businesses.
Social service and labor advocates said raising the minimum wage said it was a step in helping Hawai‘i’s working poor become self-sufficient, especially when the federal welfare reform law will cut hundreds of welfare recipients from cash assistance in December. The 1996 law allows most families to collect welfare benefits for only five years. Some advocates, however, are not sure how much of a difference those minimum wage measures would make.
Small-business advocates and others have said the minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage and that an increase would severely hurt businesses. Business advocates also warned that raising the minimum wage would force businesses to cut jobs, and that it would slow job creation and cause inflation.
Taniguchi said: "We don’t get that sense, but yet you never want to gamble with that. We’re just trying to find a balance."
The last minimum wage increase was in 1993, according to the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. The minimum wage in California, Washington, Oregon and Alaska is higher than in Hawai‘i.
