{"id":106614,"date":"2016-02-18T20:44:33","date_gmt":"2016-02-19T03:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/minimum-wage-measure-dies-at-colorado-legislature\/"},"modified":"2016-02-18T20:44:33","modified_gmt":"2016-02-19T03:44:33","slug":"minimum-wage-measure-dies-at-colorado-legislature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/minimum-wage-measure-dies-at-colorado-legislature\/","title":{"rendered":"Minimum-wage measure dies at Colorado Legislature"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Colorado legislative chambers on opening day in 2015.<\/span>Associated Press file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 Republican state lawmakers on Wednesday killed a measure pushed by Democrats that sought to raise the minimum wage in Colorado.<\/p>\n

The legislation \u2013 which also failed in previous legislative sessions \u2013 would have repealed a 1999 law that gave the state control over minimum-wage issues, allowing local governments to establish minimum wages commensurate with the local cost of living.<\/p>\n

The Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee killed the bill on a 3-2 party-line vote.<\/p>\n

Most employment sectors in and around Durango do not provide enough income to meet the basic needs of a family of four, according to the 2015 Southwest Colorado Index released in December.<\/p>\n

Advocates for raising the minimum wage point to the December report, suggesting that if lawmakers do not act, then the issue should be taken to the Colorado ballot.<\/p>\n

The minimum wage in Colorado is $8.31 per hour, or about $17,225 per year. A family of four in Durango would need to earn $28.45 per hour to make a so-called \u201clivable wage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supporters suggest that taxpayers end up subsidizing businesses that don\u2019t pay higher wages, as employees seek government welfare programs.<\/p>\n

But business interests say the measure would have caused uncertainty, creating a patchwork of wages across the state.<\/p>\n

pmarcus@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

have allowed locals to establish minimums<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5843],"tags":[94,13,1634],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-106614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-living","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-wage-and-pension"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106614"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=106614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}