While most legislators were proposing and debating plans to mend Alabama’s budget shortfall, some legislators had other ideas.
During last month’s special legislative session, a bill that would ban local minimum wage hikes was approved by a committee in the Alabama House of Representatives. The bill would ban any locality – city or county – in the state of Alabama from increasing its minimum wage.
Alabama currently has no law on the books to alter the national minimum wage. The City of Auburn currently adheres to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Bill Ham, mayor of Auburn, said it is unlikely Auburn will raise its minimum wage in the near future.
“There’s been no discussion by the council to single out the minimum wage and take action like that,” Ham said. “I really don’t see it ever happening [in Auburn], but that would just be another area with the state government telling us what to do.”
The bill was tabled for the next session before a vote was taken so legislators could focus on the budget. Any bill proposed during a special session must relate to the purpose of the session – in last month’s case, the budget crisis. If the bill doesn’t meet that standard, it requires a two-thirds majority vote to pass.
While the bill was tabled, it is likely the bill will be reintroduced in the next session by its sponsor, Rep. David Faulkner – a Republican from the Birmingham suburb of Mountain Brook. The bill’s sponsors said dozens of different minimum wages would make business in Alabama difficult.
Faulkner proposed the bill in response to a city of Birmingham ordinance that is set to raise its minimum wage gradually to $10.10 per hour by July 2017. The ordinance was passed by the Birmingham City Council on Aug. 18. The bill proposed in the Alabama House of Representatives would reverse Birmingham's minimum wage increase.
“There’s no question what needs to be done today,” said Lashunda Robert-Scales, a Birmingham City Councilwoman during the meeting Aug. 18. “Nobody can live off $15,000 a year. If that’s what the citizens are living off of, we might as well tell all of our citizens to depend on the federal government – and everybody knows what those programs consist of.”
Supporters of a minimum wage increase claim it is impossible to live on the current federal minimum wage without additional support. According to the Pew Research Center, 74 percent of the United States supports raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.
Opponents of an increase in the minimum wage say raising wages could force small businesses to close, lay off employees or reduce employees’ hours. Others say most minimum wage workers are teenagers and college students working their first job.
With costs rising for college students and their families, a minimum wage increase could be an immense help, according to Gabe Bridges, freshman in marine biology.
“Being a full-time college student, I can’t work a lot," Bridges said. "I can work some afternoons, but I still have school work to do. My average pay check is $150. After putting gas in your truck and buying groceries, you’re left with practically nothing. $2 or $3 doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you’re making that every hour, it can make or break you.”
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