Months after losing an Ohio House of Representatives race, local business owner Kelly Wicks is still trying to make an influence on state politics.
Teaming up with U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), the two will call for a rise of Ohio’s minimum wage.
Wicks will join Sen. Brown and Carrie Day, a local waitress, at a news conference Tuesday morning at Wicks’ Grounds for Thought Coffee Shop on Main Street.
The three will give their joint support for the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, a bill introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) earlier this month. Brown serves as one of 26 senatorial cosponsors of the bill.
The proposed bill would raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour incrementally by 2015.
If passed, Ohio’s minimum wage would raise by nearly 30 percent, from $7.85 to $10.10 an hour for non-tipped workers.
This bill mirrors a previous attempt from Harkin and Senate Democrats in last year’s Congress, when a near-identical bill was referred to a labor committee but was never voted upon.
A minimum wage increase has met sharp Republican opposition in Congress and from Sen. Brown’s Ohio colleague, Sen. Rob Portman.
“The best way to get the economy going again is by reforming our complex, outdated tax code … and lifting the regulatory burdens that small businesses say are the single greatest threat from Washington today,” Portman said of a potential increase to The Plain Dealer this past July.
