By State House Bureau Chief Briana Vannozzi
Lakisha Williams works as a wheelchair assistant at Newark Liberty International Airport raising her 12 year-old daughter on $7.25 an hour. A task she says is nearly impossible.
“I try my best to pay my bills, I get up every morning to go to work, take my daughter to school,” she said. “And the bills, I may have to split it like pay one half one week out of one check and another half another week out of the next check.”
She was one of many testifying before the Assembly Labor Committee in Trenton today in support of a measure that would require increasing the state minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $8.50. Right now, workers like Lakisha take home less than $300 a week.
“I don’t want to be on the streets,” said Williams. “For minimum wage to go up I think that will help us a lot.”
Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver, a prime sponsor of the Democratic backed legislation called it an economic stimulus.
“Because anyone who earns $15,000 a year as low paid workers do, will immediately spend that money,” said Oliver. “They’ll spend it paying rent, on buses and trains, in supermarkets and in local businesses.”
While the governor says he’s waiting for Democrats to approach him on the measure, Oliver says talks are already underway.
“We are not seeking to create any bipartisan theatrics here. Anything as it pertains to the minimum wage happens with myself, Senate President Sweeney and the governor at a table agreeing to things.”
Lawmakers are using a federal study as primary support for this bill. It says every $1 an hour increase translates to $3,200 more spent by families who make the minimum wage. But business owners argue it’s not about being unwilling to put more money in their worker’s pockets, it’s about being able to afford it.
Take Muhammed Mustafa for example. The hard working owner of Chuck’s Cafe in Trenton for nearly two decades says increasing the minimum wage means he’d have to cut back hours.
“I don’t have good customers like before, no one has money,” he said. “The guy that used to spend $10 for lunch now needs to spend like $4 or $5 for lunch.”
After the initial hike, the minimum wage would rise every year based on the increase of the consumer price index. That’s a cost small business owner Joe Olivo says he couldn’t keep up with each year.
“My concern is that something like the minimum wage is such a hot issue politically and it’s so easy to demonize someone who is against it,” said Olivo outside the committee hearing. “But no one thinks it through and they end up hurting the same employees they’re trying to help.”
The panel approved the bill today and it now goes to the full Assembly.
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