Yee haw! The U.S. Senate approved a $2.10 minimum-wage raise Thursday, Feb. 1, the first increase in the federal minimum in more than nine years.

Now serious pressure is on the House to approve the Senate’s more business-friendly version – read tax breaks for small businesses – of the raise legislation. (The House, where Democrats hold more sway than they do in the Senate, passed a “cleaner” minimum-wage bill back at the beginning of January.) For more on the ongoing federal and state effort to raise the minimum wage, see “Hope on Minimum-Wage Horizon”.

This article appears in February 2 • 2007.

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