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Hakeem Jeffries on Jobs
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Voted NO on allowing compensatory time off for working overtime.
Congressional Summary:- Amends the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to authorize private employers to provide compensatory time off to private employees at a rate of 1 1/2 hours per hour of employment for which overtime compensation is required.
- Authorizes an employer to provide compensatory time only if it is in accordance with an applicable collective bargaining agreement.
- Prohibits an employee from accruing more than 160 hours of compensatory time.
- Requires an employee's employer to provide monetary compensation for any unused compensatory time off accrued during the preceding year.
- Requires an employer to give employees 30-day notice before discontinuing compensatory time off.
Opponent's Argument for voting No:
Rep. COURTNEY: This is the fifth time that the majority party has introduced [this bill since] 1997; and each time, the huge flaws in this legislation have resulted in its complete collapse.
And once again, it doesn't deserve that support. Despite the representations made in its title--that it promotes workers' flexibility, that it gives workers choice--a closer examination of the bill shows the opposite is true. The better way to describe this bill is the More Work, Pay Less bill. The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act created a bright line to protect people's right to a 40-hour work week, and make sure that that next hour after 40 hours is paid for with the time-and-a-half of wages. That created the weekend in America. That created the time off that middle class families have taken for granted for decades.
What this bill does is it blurs that line; it creates total chaos in terms of trying to come up with a system to set up ground rules with a case-by-case written contract, and then leaves it to the enforcement of State Labor Departments Wage and Hours Divisions, which are totally incapable of going into the tens of thousands of workplaces all across America.
Reference: Working Families Flexibility Act;
Bill H.R.1406
; vote number 13-HV137
on Apr 9, 2013
Raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour by 2016.
Jeffries co-sponsored Minimum Wage Fairness Act
Congressional summary: Increases the federal minimum wage for employees to:
- $8.20 an hour beginning 6 months after enactment
- $9.15 an hour beginning 1 year later,
- $10.10 an hour beginning 2 years later, and
- an amount determined by increases in the Consumer Price Index, beginning annually after 3 years.
- Increases the federal minimum wage for tipped employees to $3.00 an hour beginning 6 months after enactment, with annual CPI adjustments.
Proponent's argument in favor (RaiseTheMinimumWage.com): The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour remains decades out of date, and the federal minimum wage for tipped workers--$2.13 per hour--has not increased in over 20 years. The minimum wage of the past provided significantly more buying power than it does today. The minimum wage of $1.60 an hour in 1968 would be $10.56 today when adjusted for inflation.
Opponent's argument against: (Neil King in Wall Street Journal,
Feb. 24, 2014): The CBO concluded that a jump in the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour could eliminate 500,000 jobs. For Republicans, the report provided ammunition that a higher minimum wage would kill jobs. Democrats pointed to the CBO's findings that the higher wage would lift 900,000 people out of poverty. But both sides missed a key finding: That a smaller hike from the current $7.25 to $9.00 an hour would cause almost no pain, and still lift 300,000 people out of poverty while raising the incomes of 7.6 million people.Congressional Budget Office report:: Once fully implemented, the $10.10 option would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers, or 0.3%. Some people earning slightly more than $10.10 would also have higher earnings, due to the heightened demand for goods and services. The increased earnings for low-wage workers would total $31 billion. Accounting for all increases and decreases, overall real income would rise by $2 billion.
Source: S.1737 & H.R.1010 14-H1010 on Mar 6, 2013
Raise minimum wage to 15% above poverty level.
Jeffries co-sponsored H.R.122
Congressional Summary:
- The federal minimum wage should be adjusted every four years so that a person working for it may earn, as a minimum, an annual income at least 15% higher than the federal poverty threshold for a family of four;
- it should be set at a level high enough to allow two full-time minimum wage workers to earn an income above the national housing wage; and
- Congress, or any local or state government, may establish a higher minimum wage.
Opponents reasons for voting NAY: (Time magazine, 9/5/13): The Washington DC council sent a bill to the mayor's desk that would require large retailers like Walmart and Target to pay its workers a "living wage" of $12.50 per hour--significantly higher than the District's $8.25 per hour minimum wage. Here are common misunderstandings about the DC bill and minimum wage laws in general:
- Myth 1: "Living Wage Bills help all workers." The DC law exempts retailers with stores smaller
than 75,000 square feet and less than $1 billion in sales, so it doesn't help many workers in small and medium sized businesses. The size requirement has the effect of protecting giant retailers that happen to do business in relatively small stores like Nike and Apple.
- Myth 2: "High minimum wages reduce employment." Standard economic theory says that if you raise the minimum wage, businesses will hire fewer workers. But over the past decade, San Francisco has instituted a minimum-wage requirement that rises with inflation, currently $10.55. These laws have not reduced employment; instead, businesses seem to have merely adjusted their models by training workers and retaining them longer.
- Myth 3: "Inflation has shrunk the minimum wage." Advocates point out the minimum wage, when adjusted for inflation, has actually fallen to $7.25 today from the equivalent (in today's dollars) of $10.70 in 1968. But the earned income tax credit has more than made up for that decline.
Source: Original Living Wage Act 15_H122 on Jan 6, 2015
Page last updated: May 26, 2020