$15 minimum wage hike proposal dead until 2018, Speaker says

TRENTON -- Democratic lawmakers have abandoned their efforts to pass a $15-an-hour minimum wage increase, but will start anew when a new governor takes office in 2018, Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto said Friday.

The Hudson County Democrat told NJ Advance Media the legislature had run out of time this year to take the necessary steps to ask voters to approve the pay increase through a constitutional amendment. A resolution would have had to pass both legislative houses earlier this month, but the measure never even got that far. Prieto said he and Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) could not agree on what the amendment should say.

Prieto wanted to phase-in a $15-an-hour wage for all minimum wage workers by 2022. Sweeney, who represents a rural part of the state, supported a gradual $15-an-hour wage for everyone but farm workers and minors, who would earn $10 an hour.

Prieto acknowledged that raising the minimum wage for the nearly 1 million state residents who earn $8.38 an hour was the centerpiece of an anti-poverty agenda he and Sweeney championed at the start of the year. Gov. Chris Christie vetoed the $15 minimum wage bill in August, as well as another measure to raise the monthly welfare grants for the first time since 1988.

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