Leader Stewart-Cousins Statement on Minimum Wage

"As details emerge it is clear that the current minimum wage proposal has some serious issues.While increasing the minimum wage to $9.00 is something that the Senate Democrats have longsupported, we are disappointed that the current proposal doesn't reach this level for three years, isnot indexed to the rate of inflation and does not raise the wages of certain service workers. The Governor and the Assembly all originally proposed acceptable proposals, unfortunately the SenateRepublicans have blocked these efforts. We propose removing this discussion from the budget andwe stand ready to provide 27 votes for raising the minimum wage quicker, with indexing and for alllow wage workers."