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Minimum Wage Increase/Estate Tax Cut Bill Details

No doubt you’ve read about how the Minimum Wage Increase bill has passed the House of Representatives 230-180. If you don’t really have the patience to read about it all, here are the details:

  • Federal minimum wage would increase from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour, phased in over the 3 years. (20 states and Washington DC already have minimum wages above the federal level, Washington State’s minimum wage is $7.63/hour)
  • Estate tax exemption for individuals with $5M, couples with $10M, by 2015. Estates worth up to $25M would be taxed capital gains (now 15%, scheduled to increase to 20%). For $25M+, tax would be fall to 30% by 2015.

    • The maneuver was aimed at defusing the minimum wage increase as a campaign issue for Democrats while using the popularity of the increase to achieve the Republican Party’s longtime goal of permanently cutting estate taxes.

    I’m personally against an estate tax (even though it affects only a very small number of people) and I don’t know the full economic ramifications of increasing the minimum wage, though I doubt the bad outweighs the good, but I would think this bill is a mixed positive.

    Details at CNN.

    Jul 29, 2006 @ 08:07 pm | 2 Comments »

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