State Sen. Lou Raptakis, D-Dist. 20, owner of a small business, is introducing legislation in this General Assembly session that he hopes will put some reason into the annual debate over raising the state’s minimum wage.
Already the fifth highest minimum wage in the nation, and only among nine states with a minimum wage higher than the national minimum wage, Rhode Island still falls behind neighboring Connecticut and Massachusetts. Both those states are used as benchmarks for Rhode Island labor, which lobbies annually to bring the state’s minimum wage to the level of our most immediate neighbors.
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That would have the sweet sound of reason if all other conditions were equal – corporate taxes, income taxes for the highest wage earners, inventory taxes, gasoline taxes, Sunday wage rules, bi-weekly wage, regulatory processes You get the picture.
So what Raptakis is suggesting is to tie the minimum wage hike to the Consumer Price Index, with a cap at 3 percent – and never have to debate the issue again. He calls it a win-win. Business wins because it can plan for what he considers reasonable annual increases. Labor wins because the minimum wage – already among the highest nationally – continues to grow, albeit at a moderate rate.
We think Raptakis’s idea has merit and is well worth strong consideration in this session of the General Assembly.
As an owner of a pizza parlor, Raptakis fully understands the need for workers to be able to count on a wage that is fair, and the pressures on business to regulate costs so they can continue to afford to hire workers, even at minimum wage.
