Raise the Kansas Wage 2008

The Kansas minimum wage of $2.65 an hour is disgracefully low and should be raised to match the national level. According to the Department of Labor, there are now at least 27,000 Kansas workers who are covered by the absurdly low Kansas minimum wage rather than by the federal minimum.

A job should keep you out of poverty, not in poverty.  It is time, at long last, for the Kansas legislature to act.

Sen. Roger Reitz, R-Manhattan, has introduced a bill  to increase the state's wage to the federal minimum wage. Under Reitz's proposal, the state's wage would increase to $7.25 an hour in 2009, after the federal rate hits that mark. The current state minimum wage is $2.65 hour and can be considered nothing but an insult to all Kansas workers. The current state minimum wage was set in 1988 and has not been raised in 20 years.

"This issue has profound negative social implications and Kansas is better than that," Reitz said. "The time has come to make a statement of fairness to all of our workforce."