House floor leader Ralph Demapan (Cov-Saipan) will introduce today a bill raising the CNMI local minimum wage\u2014still pegged at $3.05 an hour\u2014\u201cto match the federal minimum wage applicable to the CNMI\u201d now at $5.55 an hour and is supposed to increase every-other-year until it reaches the federal wage floor of $7.25 an hour.<\/p>\n
Demapan said the local wage of $3.05 an hour applies to residents and small businesses \u201cnot engaged in commerce\u201d as defined by the Federal Labor Standards Act.<\/p>\n
Right now, other job categories and classifications are not covered by the federal minimum wage applicable to the CNMI, including house workers and farmers.<\/p>\n
This year, the federal minimum wage law applicable to the CNMI will increase by another 50 cents, bringing it to $6.05 an hour.<\/p>\n
Demapan said the lower CNMI minimum wage results in salary inequality with employees doing the same job being paid different minimum wages.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order to have a uniform minimum wage, the Commonwealth minimum wage should be changed to match the federal minimum wage applicable in the [CNMI],\u201d Demapan said in his House Bill 18-163.<\/p>\n
Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) earlier said nothing stops CNMI lawmakers from raising the local minimum wage.<\/p>\n
He also told the Saipan Chamber of Commerce that there is nothing in the federal minimum wage law that says employers cannot pay more than the minimum.<\/p>\n
The Chamber asked Sablan to have the 50-cent minimum wage increase delayed in 2013 through legislation that President Barack Obama signed into law on Sept. 18.<\/p>\n
The same law that skipped the 2013 and 2015 minimum wage hike also conveyed to the CNMI 3 miles of submerged lands.<\/p>\n
A 2007 U.S. law requires the federal minimum wage applicable to the CNMI to increase annually until it reaches the federal wage floor of $7.25 an hour. That law has been amended to skip the increase during certain years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
House floor leader Ralph Demapan (Cov-Saipan) will introduce today a bill raising the CNMI local minimum wage\u2014still pegged at $3.05 an hour\u2014\u201cto match the federal minimum wage applicable to the CNMI\u201d now at $5.55 an hour and is supposed to increase every-other-year until it reaches the federal wage floor of $7.25 an hour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}