Children's Alliance favors $1.50 increase in NH minimum wage

January 28, 2004

N.H. House Labor, Industrial and Rehabilitative Services Committee hearing on House Bill 1278

Testimony of Steve Varnum, Public Policy Director, Children's Alliance of New Hampshire

I am here to speak on behalf of House Bill 1278, which provides what we believe is a modest increase in the state minimum wage phased in over the next three years.

The minimum wage issue is a children’s issue. As the Children’s Alliance reported in our Kids Count New Hampshire 2003 data book, the percentage of New Hampshire children who live in poverty rose to 7.8% (23,635 in 1999) during the last decade. Those who lived with a single-parent increased from 15% to 20%.

Those two facts are related. As we know, one of the risks of single parenthood is the lack of resources with which to care for your family. Seventy-seven percent of them were in single-parent households (66% female-headed, 11% male-headed), and the vast majority are under age 5, so they ar not yet receiving free or reduced-price meals and others services they bget when they enter the school systems.

Despite the fact that New Hampshire families have a median income of $51,900 -- nearly 14% above the national median -- 54,000 children live in working poor families that struggle to meet basic needs. Those 54,000 -- 1 in 6 children -- live with parents or guardians whose jobs don't pay enough for them to afford shelter, food, and clothing, child care, and other necessities of a working family.

An interesting fact goes along with that statistic: Nationally, less than a third of children in poverty received cash public assistance (Temporary Aid to Needy Families, Supplemental Security Income) in 1999. Two-thirds of these kids rely on the meager paychecks of their mothers, fathers, even brothers and sisters.

Some of you are familiar with the New Hampshire Child Advocacy Network. Its 2001 Children's Agenda, created and supported by more than 100 organizations across the state, calls for a raise in the minimum wage in New Hampshire "so that full-time work brings family income above the poverty level."

The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy reported last June that a livable wage in New Hampshire for a single parent with one child was $15.72 an hour. A livable wage for two working parents with one child was $9.77 an hour. Parents working for minimum wage need a lot of help.

Low-income families live on a financial cliff. A rent increase or an illness can cost them their homes, and disrupt their children's physical and mental health, education and community connection.

While many, if not most, working people receive annual cost-of-living increases, the minimum wage hasn't kept pace with inflation. To have the same purchasing power as the 1968 minimum wage, it would need to be more than $7.50.

We ask you to join our sister New England states. All have recognized that the $5.15 federal minimum wage is too low. Rhode Island has raised its minimum wage to $6.15, all the others are higher.

You may be told that this increase will mostly benefit teenagers who work part-time. The Dept. of Employment Security reports that of the 27,000 minimum wage workers in our state, only 1 in 14 is a teenager from a family with higher-than-average earnings. Approximately 28,000 workers age 16 and over earn less than $6.15 an hour.

We ask you to help the children and parents in working poor families. $6.15 an hour isn't a living wage, but it's closer than where we are now. Please send this bill to the full Senate with a unanimous "ought to pass."

Note: HB 1278 was defeated in the NH House.

Learn about efforts to raise the federal minimum wage.