WEEK SIX
February 19, 2015
Minimum Wage
Instead of focusing on policies that pit one group of Iowans against another, the legislature needs to focus on policies that benefit ALL Iowans. An increase in the minimum wage might poll well and it’s famous for its political value, but we can’t forget about those in the middle who make more than the minimum wage and still have much of their paychecks taken by government. Everyone knows that an increase in the minimum wage has a jobs penalty. The extent of the jobs penalty is unknown. But the Employment Policies Institute released a study that says Iowa would lose between 5,229 and 15,687 jobs if the min wage went to $10.10/hour. Last year the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a report regarding the jobs penalty with a $9.00 minimum wage. The most likely jobs penalty resulting from a $9.00 minimum wage is loss of about 100,000 jobs nationally. According to Iowa State University professor Peter Orazem, the assumption that an increase in the minimum wage will help workers and benefit the economy is rarely true. Orazem said, “An increase is not going to create jobs; it’s not going to make people richer. It will help some people and hurt some people, so in the end it’s a wash in terms of the overall economy.” He referenced a study, published in the Journal Labor Research, in which he analyzed the impact of Iowa’s minimum wage. The study looked at changes in worker pay from 1989 to 1992. During this time, Iowa set its first state minimum wage, which was 50 cents more than the federal rate and exceeded the rate of neighboring states. Orazem found a slight reduction in the number of people working after the rate was increased. But instead of cutting jobs, businesses were more likely to cut hours, and that hurt workers.” When considering increasing the minimum wage, we must carefully consider the repercussions for Iowa’s small businesses and for Iowa workers. Not only will small businesses have to evaluate whether to fire or cut hours of employees, but also workers may be bumped from essential services they are receiving such Medicaid, food stamps and child care assistance.
School Funding Discussion Continues The school funding discussion continues to move forward this week, although hampered by the actions of the Senate. The House Education Committee approved Senate Files 171 and 172 on Wednesday on party-line votes after amending the bills from a 4% Supplemental State Aid amount to a 1.25% amount, as previously passed by the House. The House passed school aid bills over 3 weeks ago, passing House File 80 and 81 which both set school aid growth at 1.25%. The Senate not only refused to act on those bills but waited nearly 3 weeks to create their own and send them over, forcing the House to go through the subcommittee, committee, and Floor debate process again, slowing down any agreement by at least another week. Had the Senate acted on the House bills, amended them to their preferred language, the legislature could be in conference committee negotiating an agreement today. The House continues to support a 1.25% proposal, which provides an additional $100 million in state dollars going to the K-12 education system next year. The House proposal continues the legislature’s trend of providing significant increases to the state’s K-12 system, bringing the 5 year total increase to over $570 million, a nearly 22% increase. While state revenues increased this year providing the legislature money to increase some appropriations for FY16, a number of built-in expenses and prior commitments via legislative action in past years leaves around $200 million available for additional expenditures for the upcoming year. The House proposal, which fits in line with the Governor’s proposal, for school funding for next year would spend half of that new available revenue on the state’s K-12 education system. Natural Resources Serving on the Natural Resources committee, I thought you would be interested in knowing the Iowa DNR will open reservations for state park campsites for Memorial Day weekend on Sunday, February 22. There is a three month span of time in which you can reserve a state park campsite for a Friday arrival on Memorial Day weekend. You can get around this loophole if you want to stay the week before Memorial Day. Therefore, some reservations for the weekend have already been reserved. You can reserve a spot online at http://iowastateparks.reserveamerica.com. This website will also show you what dates and parks are available and what amenities are included. Most parks also have sites available for walk up camping. Memorial Day is Monday, May 25, 2015.
Bill Banning Tanning for Minors Passes House Committee On February 17, the House Human Resources committee passed House Study Bill 81 by a 15-5 vote. HSB 81 would ban tanning in a tanning salon for people under the age of 18. Currently, Iowa is one of 9 states that do not have restrictions on the use of indoor tanning. An amendment that would have allowed tanning for teens between the ages of 16 and 17 with parental consent was defeated in committee. The number of skin cancer cases due to tanning is higher than the number of lung cancer cases due to smoking. This number is staggering in the United States with 419,254 cases of skin cancer. Out of this number 6,199 are melanoma cases.
CLOSING THOUGHTS Many bills are being printed for all committees and ideas are flowing. I will do my best to keep you updated on the legislative process of various bills coming out of committees. Please feel free to contact me at
[email protected]
