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May 11 saw a surprise in the Louisiana legislature, where lawmakers advanced a bill that would raise the wage floor for the first time since Congress set the federal minimum wage at $7.25 an hour back in 2009. Advocates and Democrats in the minority propose a wage hike during every legislative session, but a bill hasn’t made it to a floor vote in years.
Two Republicans on the Louisiana Senate’s labor committee abstained from the vote, allowing Democrats a 3-2 majority to approve the bill along party lines. The bill would raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour in 2024 and $14 an hour by 2028. In Louisiana, $18 an hour is considered a living wage for an adult living with another working adult and one child, according to data crunchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
More than one in four children live in poverty in Louisiana, where Black organizers and economic justice groups have campaigned to raise the minimum wage for years. Like other red states, a law originally crafted by Republicans and business interests blocks individual cities from raising the minimum wage within their borders, even as inflation and an affordable housing crisis put the cost of living out of reach for many families.
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