And while the work of this session will certainly focus after this
week, it’s perhaps more interesting to look at bills that appear to be
dead this session; one of which is Iowa’s minimum wage. I attended a
legislative forum over the weekend and was given a fact sheet on this
issue. I want to take an opportunity to share some of that information
with you.

Iowa’s minimum wage is stuck at $5.15 per hour. The 200,000 Iowa
workers that work for minimum wage in this state pull in a whopping
$10,712 yearly. This puts them at $5,000 below poverty level for a family
of three. Iowa is a low wage state, ranking somewhere around 40th in
the country. This is embarrassing, it is wrong and Iowa must do better.

There are four bills that have yet to pass out of committee that will
increase Iowa’s minimum wage. Two in the House, HF 105 and HF111; and
two in the Senate, SF 120 and SF 94. These bills ought to be headed for
debate and yet they are destined for the circular file.

Opponents to raising the minimum wage will tell you that since the
federal minimum wage is $5.15, there’s no reason or precedent for
Iowa’s to be higher. That is simply not true; 14 states and the
District of Columbia each have a higher minimum wage than the federal
rate. Many other state legislatures are starting to take action on this
issue, and Iowa is not even willing to debate it. Not only is Iowa not a leader on this issue, we aren’t even a very good follower.

Opponents also say that it will hurt Iowa’s economy to raise the
minimum wage higher than the federal rate. Again, not true; between
1990-1996, most of the time Iowa’s rate was higher than the federal and
not only did it not hurt us, it helped us. Our state output grew and
unemployment actually dropped.

And when those arguments fail, they say that it will hurt small
businesses by “driving up their costs.” While wage costs will go up,
studies have shown that businesses recoup some of that cost by higher
productivity, increased worker morale, lower absenteeism and lower
recruiting costs.