President Barack Obama will sign an executive order setting the minimum wage for workers under new federal contracts at $10.10 an hour, the White House said Tuesday. The president will announce the increase during his State of the Union address.
The increase from a national minimum wage of $7.25 an hour will not affect existing federal contracts, only new ones. Moreover, contract renewals will not be affected unless other terms of the agreement change.
The order would be one of the biggest examples in the State of the Union of Obama’s vow to use presidential authority to push for policies by circumventing Congress.
Obama has been under pressure from liberal groups and employee advocates to use his executive authority to raise the minimum pay for federal contractors. By limiting the increase to new contracts, the order would affect far fewer employees than if it applied to all government contractors.
Still, the issue dovetails with what will be Obama’s broader call for Congress to increase the national minimum wage to $10.10 and tie future increases to inflation. Obama called last year for an increase in the minimum wage to $9. This year he is lending his support to legislation sponsored by Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. Their bill also would raise the minimum wage for tipped workers for the first time in more than two decades.
Increasing the wage for federal contractors does not require congressional action.
The White House said those who would benefit from the executive order include federally contracted janitors and construction workers as well as workers in military bases who wash dishes, serve food and do laundry.
(AP)
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2 Responses
Very few if any federal workers make minimum wage (the lowest federal salary, a GS-1, step 1, makes well more than the minimum wage Obama is talking about, plus very good benefits). In fact, at the lower end of the pay scale, most federal employees are extremely overpaid. The Obama order affects private sector firms that are doing jobs that have been outsourced, such as when an agency prefers to hire a company to do janitorial work rather than higher paid federal employees. This will impact on whether such firms will bid for contracts since many may decide it isn’t worth it if they have to pay $10/hour for a job that in the real world is only worth $8 – or at least they’ll charge more. The bottom line is that taxpayers will overpay, and other federal services will end up being curtailed since the money will go for overpaying the janitorial and kitchen staff, instead of programs such as assisting people in federal hospitals, processing social security paperwor or dealing with criminals.
why stop there? Why doesn’t he just raised it to $20 an hour, or 25 an hour, or hey why not maybe $50 an hour?