New Jersey Legislature Sends Minimum Wage Hike To Christie's Desk
TRENTON, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The New Jersey Legislature on Monday sent a bill to the desk of Gov. Chris Christie that would raise the state's minimum wage by $1.25, to $8.50 per hour.
The minimum wage hike would amount to a $50 per year raise for someone working 40 hours.
The measure bases automatic yearly adjustments on consumer price data.
The vote in the Assembly was 44 to 31 with one abstention. It followed previous party-line votes in both chambers of the Legislature.
The Senate approved the bill last week by a vote of 23-16 with no Republican votes in the affirmative, sending it back to the Assembly for a final technical vote to amend the start date to March 1.
"There really is a philosophy difference between the two parties, and it clearly is a philosophy issue. What was really troubling is they were trying to blame the hurricane, which, they were opposing this bill before the hurricane and now everyone invokes the hurricane as the reason why they can't vote on it," New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney told WCBS 880 last week.
The Democrat-led Legislature also has put the issue on a parallel track that would ask voters to approve a minimum wage increase next year if Christie vetoes the legislation, which lawmakers expect.
"The Assembly and Senate wanted to be armed with a vehicle or tool if what the governor sends back to us is not acceptable to us," Speaker Sheila Oliver said after Monday's vote. She said the Assembly will take up the ballot question during its final voting session of the year on Dec. 17.
The Legislature must pass resolutions in consecutive years to get the question on the ballot next November. The only other way to get the question before voters is for it to pass by a three-fifths majority, which won't happen if all the Republicans vote in lock-step with the governor's wishes.
New Jersey is one of 23 states whose minimum wage is $7.25, the same as the federal minimum. An increase to $8.50 would put New Jersey third highest, behind only Washington state and Oregon.
Both Oliver and Sweeney identified increasing the minimum wage as a priority for the year. But the bill stalled in the Senate, and the ballot question gained momentum, after Sweeney revealed that the governor told him privately he would not sign a bill with automatic annual adjustments based on the Consumer Price Index.
Christie has not said publicly what he'll do. The business community is urging him to veto the bill.
"New Jersey is one of a handful of states in the country in which the unemployment rate went up this year, and this bill guarantees an even slower recovery," said Laurie Ehlbeck, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business.
Some Republicans in the Legislature said they aren't opposed to raising the minimum wage, but questioned the wisdom of doing so now when the economy is still struggling to recover and much of the state took a hit from Superstorm Sandy.
Oliver wasn't swayed. She said she and other Democrats have supported tax initiatives and other help for small businesses and now it's time to support the lowest wage earners who help make those small businesses viable.
"There are people in this state who come home from working 40 hours a week and have $290 at the end," she said. "I know, and many of my colleagues know, that is not enough to sustain yourself in this state."
Oliver and Sweeney are unwilling to abandon the bill's automatic adjustment provision, which they say typically increases the minimum wage more gradually, and some years not at all.
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