Business Lobby Interests Bottlenecking Minimum Wage Increase In Senate

Big business lobby interests have been pressuring Republican senators to bottleneck the minimum wage increase proposal in the U.S. Senate that was passed by a wide 82 vote majority in the U.S. House in their flurry of 100 hours of bill passing.

Just like past attempts to increase the minimum wage which were bottlenecked by addition of numerous probusiness amendments since the last increase in 1996, this latest attempt to increase the minimum wage is being gutted into a largely probig business bill, with any wage increase buried in a mountain of unacceptable big busines give-aways.

Instead of a straight up or down vote on the house version of the bill, debate today starts in the senate, which will no doubt center on the numerous amendment proposals.

Voters in many states voted overwelming for minimum wage increase proposals at the state level in the last two election cycles. Voters overwelmingly voted for change in congress this past November, including for Democratic candidates supporting platform proposals such as more worker and consumer friendly proposals such as increasing the minimum wage. Living is very expensive. Rent, food, health care, heat and gasoline have all seen sharp inflation since the last minimum wage hike in 1996. A wage increase for America's hard pressed working class is long overdue.