The Need for Common Ground - Better Jobs, Better Wages

From Today's Rapid City Journal

Even the limited 2.1 percent rise in wages in South Dakota last year may be deceptive because of the much higher percentage increases for essential expenses such as health-care costs, Democratic legislative candidate Pam Hemmingsen of Rapid City said. Wage earners must try to balance increases in their income against a much higher rise in other costs of living, the District 32 House candidate said.

“With the rising cost of health care, I’d argue that the actual wage increase is even smaller,” Hemmingsen said. “The average dollar amount in the pockets of South Dakotans is far less than it was a few years ago.”

Hemmingsen said priorities of Rounds and the Republican-controlled Legislature have been in the wrong place — emphasizing divisive social issues and missing opportunities to boost small business and support wage earners.

Hemmingsen and other Democratic legislative candidates are proposing an economic- development package aimed at increasing the minimum wage, re-directing state-funded loans to be more helpful to smaller businesses and requiring industries that benefit from the loans to pay higher wages.