Minnesota lawmakers, deadlocked for the last month on differences over how to raise the state’s minimum wage, appeared to move a step closer to compromise Tuesday.
Members of a House-Senate conference committee convened to hear a proposal from committee co-chair Ryan Winkler, author of the minimum wage legislation in the Minnesota House. The change unveiled Tuesday would maintain the House’s original plan to raise the wage to $9.50 an hour, but delay full implementation until 2016.
The proposal would raise the state’s minimum wage from the current $6.15 an hour to $8 on Aug. 1, $9 in 2015 and $9.50 in 2016. The wage for employees of small companies, defined as those with $500,000 or less in gross sales, would go up to $7.75 an hour by 2016.
The minimum wage would be indexed to inflation starting in 2017 and would increase annually by up to 3 percent.
“From my point of view, this is significant movement from the original House bill,” said Winkler.
Committee co-chair Chris Eaton called the proposal “comprehensive,” but said, “I will need to take it back to my caucus.” She said the Senate DFL caucus is meeting Wednesday evening.
Winkler expressed the hope the conference committee could meet again before week’s end.
DFL Governor Mark Dayton and the DFL-controlled House and Senate all said raising the minimum wage was a priority for action in the 2014 Legislature. But one month after the session started, the legislation remained bogged down in conference committee. Lawmakers are trying to reconcile the measure passed last year by the Minnesota House with a much weaker version approved in the Senate.
A broad coalition of community, faith and labor groups has come together to call for an increase in the wage. Last week, the coalition went to the Capitol to deliver thousands of postcards from citizens who support a higher minimum wage that is indexed to keep pace with inflation.