House Panel OKs Minimum Wage Increase

The Democratic-controlled House labor standards subcommittee voted along party lines today to increase the minimum wage from $3.35 to $4.65 an hour over the next three years.

The 6-3 vote came after Democrats defeated Republican amendments designed to either water down or kill the measure, which would raise the minimum wage 50 cents an hour on Jan. 1, 1989, and 40 cents an hour each of the following years.

However, the subcommittee refused, 7 to 2, to tie future increases to inflation, a proposal once wanted by organized labor but which it abandoned in an effort to preserve the $4.65-an-hour figure.

Fears ‘Automatic Pilot’

Rep. Timothy J. Penny (D-Minn.), who proposed the elimination of the indexing of future increases, said he was “concerned about something like this being on automatic pilot. Congress should review any future increases.” He also said automatic increases in the minimum wage could drive up salaries of workers who make higher than the minimum, leading to inflation.

Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the full House Labor and Education Committee, voted against the Penny amendment, saying it “is ill-timed, unwarranted and not justified by the facts. There is no indication that it leads to inflation. Wages lag behind inflation and will always do as long as they are based on past experience.”

Hawkins said the full committee will take up the measure next Thursday.