Gov. Neil Abercrombie on Friday signed a minimum-wage increase into state law, couching the pay raise for low-income workers in Hawaii's proud, and often forgotten, history of labor activism.
At a signing ceremony at the state Capitol auditorium, the governor dedicated the law to the late Dave Thompson, a revered activist with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and others who have strived for worker rights.
Abercrombie said he has always disliked the label of a minimum wage because, he said, "it has the connotation, ‘What's the least we can do to let you survive?' I always thought it wasn't a minimum wage; it was a survival wage.
"And in today's world, that minimum wage is not a survival wage — certainly not in Hawaii and almost anywhere else, as well."
The state's $7.25-an-hour minimum wage will gradually climb to $10.10 an hour by January 2018. The 25-cent tip credit, the amount businesses can deduct from workers who earn tips, will expand to 75 cents. But businesses will not be able to deduct the tip credit unless workers earn at least $7 an hour above the minimum wage, up from 50 cents.
While the new law is an election-year policy victory for Democrats, who have highlighted income inequality as a theme in Hawaii and across the nation, passing a minimum-wage increase was a two-year struggle at a Legislature controlled by majority Democrats.
Hawaii's minimum wage has not been increased since 2007.
Just 2.2 percent of the state's labor force earns the minimum wage. Yet the low wage floor has disappointed labor and social-service advocates given the state's high cost of living and the 6.2 percent of workers who hold multiple jobs to make ends meet.
Abercrombie has called for a minimum-wage increase for the past two years. President Barack Obama has also sought to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, yet Hawaii lawmakers only agreed to $10.10 after the persistence of state Sen. Clayton Hee and state Rep. Mark Nakashima, the main negotiators on the bill.
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