Minimum wage bill shelved
A bill that would have increased the state’s minimum wage from $10.10 an hour to $15 an hour was killed at the last minute Friday.
The bill moving through the state legislature was to have increased the minimum wage in increments throughout the course of four years, with the most recent draft proposing an increase to $12 an hour in 2020 and another increase to $15 an hour in 2023.
However, a conference committee deciding on the final draft of the bill chose to defer the measure entirely because of concerns regarding its legality, said Rep. Richard Creagan, D-South Kona/Kaʻu, who co-introduced the bill. That decision was made less than two hours before the final deadline to finalize the draft.
Creagan said conferees had last-minute concerns about whether that separate scale was legal and whether it would cause unintended consequences, so lawmakers ultimately decided to remove the scale entirely.
