President Barack Obama used his State of the Union address Tuesday night to announce an increase in federal contractors minimum wage to $10.10 an hour; the same amount as a bill currently filed in Congress. As the nation listens to continued remarks from the president this week on the matter most recently on Thursday at a General Electric plant in Wisconsin employers should be aware of what actually happened, and has yet to happen, for Americans minimum wage.
The President’s announcement that he will use his executive order authority to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 is largely symbolic, says Leslie Silverman, co-head of management-side law firm Proskauer Roses Government Regulatory Compliance & Relations Group. If the order is limited to employees working on government contracts, only a tiny percentage of all federal contractor employees a mere fraction of this country’s minimum wage earners are likely to see their wages increase as a result of this announcement. Federal contractors should be able to build the increase into their future bids.
