Senate Democrats block GOP efforts to cap Virginia’s minimum wage increase |
Sen. Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg
Virginia’s gradual increase of the state’s minimum wage – which Democrats set in motion in 2020 – will move ahead despite GOP efforts to thwart it.
Democrats in a key Senate panel on Monday roundly rejected legislation introduced by two GOP senators that would have frozen increases at the current minimum wage of $11 dollars an hour.
The panel voted down the bill 12-3 vote, along party lines.
The bill would have axed an increase to $12 an hour next year, a plan to study increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026, and a provision that would have tied the minimum wage to inflation starting also in 2026.
Sen. Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg, the bill’s sponsor, said small businesses, especially in rural areas, can’t keep up with the wage increase.
“This isn’t going to lead to people making more money; it’s gonna lead to more small businesses closing and shutting down,” Peake told members of the Senate Commerce and Labor panel. The body is chaired by Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, D-Fairfax, who introduced the Democrats’ minimum wage bill.
Saslaw said that the state’s minimum wage bill has not kept up with inflation since the 1970s, a problem the gradual increase is seeking to correct. Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax said that the increase is critical with a national inflation rate hovering at 7% last year.
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