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I, Kevin Ruiz support this bill of increasing the minimum wage by $2.
Increasing Minimum wage will help the low-income earning population. Allowing them to survive the vast inflation sweeping the U.S currently. This bill could be changed to increase in small increments instead of a sudden change accommodating for small businesses to make adjustments.

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As a representative of my party I fully indorse the passing of this bill. I believe that It will work the better support the working body of this county, and help bridge the gap between what people have and what people need in order to live a peaceful and productive life.

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I agree that a good compromise is adding more time to the minimum wage increase, how much time do you suppose is enough to prepare?

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I believe minimum wage should be increased, but not by the proposed two dollars. Instead, it should be increased by $1, so that small businesses will be able to pay more to employees and not have to lay anyone off.

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Rep. Culp I do not agree that small businesses would not struggle in the wake of increasing the minimum wage considering the evidence of how this will impact our workers in the economy. There is so many drastic effects that could be put into play if even raising the minimum wage by a measly dollar.

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I believe that the best decision would be to keep this bill from passing. The consistency of our economy relies on the hands of how much we put into our employer's pockets. Increasing the minimum wage is unfair to small businesses and middle class workers who would not specifically benefit from a small increase of cent and lose hours of work in the process of job cuts. It is simply not the strongest of cards for my fellow constituents.

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I agree , the bill is not ready to be passed. As Americans we need to uplift those of low income and small business and see them succeed. Customers will leave when competition is spread. Raising the minimum wage would put the homes of our small business owners and workers in danger of bankruptcy.

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I am Rep. Dubay of Florida State and I am not for raising the federal minimum wage. If they 2.00 increase is implemented 30 days after the bill is passed, business owners wont have time to make up for the increase in wage for their employing. Having raised the minimum wage just $0.50 caused 645,000 entry-level jobs to be ended. This will damage not only business in general, small business, and low-skill workers.

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My name is Representative Culp of Arizona, and I am for increasing minimum wage. Even a slight increase of $1 could persuade unemployed citicens to go out and get jobs and better our state as a whole. It is also proven that this change will not greatly negatively affect local small buisnesses.

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studies show that this increase will not significantly hurt small businesses and certainly not large corporations. Lowering to the original bill from a $2 increase to a $1 increase would also help if small business would struggle to pay this increase.

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I believe that minimum wage should be increased by a $1. This way, wages are increased while creating as little hurt to businesses and the economy. While it may not seem like a lot, the cost of living and simple things like groceries are increasing so the few extra dollars on paychecks can help.

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Yes minimum wage should be increased however 30 days is not enough time for businesses and the economy to support this increase.

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People need to be able to afford to pay for housing and food. These are basic need Americans struggle to pay for everyday. Everybody deserves a chance to have basic needs.

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I seriously hate people and their happiness and well being so i propose we actually decrease the minimum wage by $17.38 because the citizens of america DO NOT DESERVE TO BE HAPPY! Thank you everyone.

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Although it does not do enough at this time the time frame will allow businesses to do more and more. If more than this proposed $2 is allowed within the same small time frame small businesses will suffer and possibly shut down and employment rates will increase due to the collapse of said small businesses

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I, Rep. Lyam of Illinois do not support this bill because of the speed at which it is to be implemented. There needs to be a longer period so that small businesses may adjust.

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The Bill that has been proposed does not do enough for the families of America struggling Paycheck to Paycheck. Minimum Wage only being increased by $2 an hour, up from $7.25. We should set a base line of at least $4 an hour increase to start. This will help counter the inflation that has occurred since that last Increase in minimum wage

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I agree that the timing of this bill being published as it is would cause more damage than benefit. It needs to be revised before being fully signed.

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ya mama

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I completely agree with you stance on this bill its high time we take a stand to all these snowflakes trying to take away our rights. This bill will be the downfall of our Republic if it passes

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Question for Rep. Reegan of Michigan from Rep. Eckert of Illinois

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Question for Rep. Reegan of Michigan from Rep. Eckert of Illinois

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The Rules Committee decided this would be a closed rule debate, so there is no allowance for amendment proposals. Do you support this bill without your proposal for a smaller increase and gradual implementation?

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Honestly, who cares about low income families right now. We will all be low income if this bill is passed. This "capitalism" you snowflakes speak of will become a reality because all the money will be headed to the big man. I advise you to save up while you can because you might have to move back in with your mom (If you're not living there already).

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Response to Rep. Morgane from Rep. Reegan

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Response to Rep. Morgane from Rep. Reegan

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I, Rep. Reegan, agree with Rep. Morgane in that raising the minimum wage so abruptly and all at once is not a good idea, but I still believe the minimum rage should be increased to account for inflation and other factors that do not allow low-income families to financially support themselves. Time processing should be implemented to allow businesses to adjust their employment options. And the total amount to be added should be lower a little bit.

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The working individuals of America should be making a livable wage. It's entirely unfair for businesses to be able to pay their employees a wage that isn't enough to pay for food, rent, etc. I understand that a minimum wage increase of $2.00 in only 30 days could negatively impact these businesses; however, I believe the livelihood of their employees is more important than a slight decrease in a business owner's net income.

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Response to Rep. Walton of Texas
While the minimum wage may seem to be a scary change to our government, as you say, it is necessary in order to lessen the wealth inequality and gap between citizens, In order to maintain the equality our Constitution states our country is built on we must bridge this gap. Also, to 30 day period to raise the minimum wage gives time to businesses to make these changes.

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Response to Rep. Katsibas of New Hampshire 

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Response to Rep. Katsibas of New Hampshire 

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I, Rep. Gilliane Russell of Oklahoma, see your point. The people of our country should be able to flourish and thrive in the environment they work in, knowing they will be paid a good amount. However, these benefits will be absolutely limited due to unemployment. It is far too expensive for companies to raise their minimum wage. They will fail to provide a vast amount of jobs.

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I, Representative Russell of Oklahoma, believe that this bill needs to be opposed. By increasing minimum wage by two dollars, businesses and entry-level workers will suffer at the hands of our government. This provides less benefits for the lower class and will introduce more corruption than ever in businesses. Companies will not be able to afford and supply their employees with suitable work hours. Raising these prices will force businesses to raise their prices, which will sway people to larger businesses and competitors. This will cause the national unemployment rate to skyrocket! In a country which benefits the people...would you really want such a thing?

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Response to rep. Linnea Ransford from rep. Lorelei Morgane

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Response to rep. Linnea Ransford from rep. Lorelei Morgane

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I agree with your idea of amending the raise to one dollar rather than two, however I believe that because it would be better like this, the bill should not be passed in its current form and rather revised to include this change. I also believe it would not help support families being implemented immediately, as they may be laid off from jobs at places that cannot afford raising the amount paid to each employee without getting rid of some of their staff.

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I, Representative Reegan of Michigan, support this bill to increase minimum wage; however, I propose an amendment to lower the increase to $1.00 instead of $2.00 and gradually implement it to allow for local businesses to have enough time to make adjustments to their economic and labor situations. I propose that a $.50 increase starts 90 days after the act is signed into law, and the other $.50 is to be added 180 days after the act is signed into law.

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I, Kenya Hines, Rep of Montana believe that this bill should absolutely not be passed. Every morning before I walk into the House, I grab myself a good cup of joe. Black. No sugar. The coffee shop is run by a man who has been there for 30 years. I've been in the office for 14 and he has never once messed up my order. Now imagine if minimum wage was raised by $2.00? How would he support his workers if he can't accommodate the change. Not only that but I'll find myself paying an extra few dollars for coffee. You liberal scums mention how this hurts famililes but what about his family? How do you think my wife will feel when I can't buy her a gold necklace because I'm $2 short from the extra money I spent on that coffee?  Think about everyone for once instead of yourselves.

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I, as an 8 year standing member in Congress representing the state of New Hampshire, believe that the passing of the bill to raise the minimum wage is a necessary decision. The increase by $2 would benefit the lives of low income workers and their families and would allow for civil liberties to be protected.

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I, rep. Morgane from New Jersey, believe that this bill should not be passed because raising the minimum wage dramatically so immediately will not be good for small businesses or the workers they are trying to help. It will take a hit on small businesses that cannot afford to increase what they are paying and will therefore require them to take less people for job positions, increasing unemployment. This bill should not be passed without looking through once more to be both reduced and implemented slowly and gradually.

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I Rep. Curtis agree with Rep. Thornley's claim that this bill is not ready to be passed, because it is not in the best interest of the people and small businesses who might be severely impacted by this "small" wage increase when they are put out of work, because they cannot financially support their employees.

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According to expert opinion, small businesses are not expected to suffer due to an increase in minimum wage despite popular opinion. While yes, there may be some short term issues, in the long term it will give a better quality of life to the citizens of America. Most of the problems will work themselves out with time.

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I Rep. Casey Curtis of Florida do not support this bill, because raising the base minimum wage would only damage the economy. The passing of this bill would cause more problems than it would solve. If businesses were to increase their minimum wage they would also need to increase their product prices which would decrease consumerism of said products and bankrupt many corporations. Workers should be making a wage based on their skill and education. The law of supply and demand should be in mind while considering this bill.

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I, Representative Makenna Grozis of Louisiana, support this bill because the minimum wage must reflect price inflation throughout the country. If the cost of living is going up, so should the minimum wage. While a $2 an hour pay increase may not seem like much to most of us here, I stand before you to advocate for low income families who live paycheck to paycheck. This increase in wage will make every difference in the world to them, and allow them to thrive as members of society.

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Response to Rep. Lilian Thomas of Ohio State

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Response to Rep. Lilian Thomas of Ohio State

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I agree with your suppositions, as seen in the large corporations, say, Clean Juice, Juicerista Sara and Amelia were recently let go when other workers had their wages increased. Furthermore, Manager W. Rosene has increased his strictness on the employees due to the increased losses for the business when workers slack at a higher wage.

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This bill is not in the best interest of the Arizona people. While it does seem beneficial in theory, the facts do not support the bill. The minimum wage increase of $2.00 is too aggressive for small businesses to handle, and it will lead to hundreds of thousands of jobs lost due to the businesses not being able to accommodate this change.

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How would businesses be able to absorb the effects of the wage increase, while keeping all of their workers.
Also, how will increased moral and potential productivity be able to account for the increased pay

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I am Abby Thornley, representing Oklahoma. This bill is not ready to go into effect as it is, and needs to be adjusted to accommodate for the possibility that it could put individuals out of work. Small businesses need to be able to pay all of their employees, and if that price becomes suddenly too high, individuals have a lesser chance of landing an entry-level job. However, a gradual increase in wages would allow for time to adjust.

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I, Ellison Holland Rep. of Illinois vote yay on the bill to raise minimum wage.

I support this bill so that families that have minimum wage jobs are able to support their families, however I believe that it should be gradual raise so that small businesses are able to accommodate for the increase in wages.

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Rep Lapolla Responding to rep Lilian Thomas

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Rep Lapolla Responding to rep Lilian Thomas

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While I understand the concern behind raising minimum wage and its effect on America business, I believe if the raise were less severe and implemented gradually it could positively benefit everyone. It would help the working class counteract rising inflation while keeping it manageable for smaller businesses.

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Although you may think that it could severely negatively affect the nation, Recent studies indicate that employers may be able to actually benefit from some of the costs of an increase in the minimum wage. If the minimum wage decreases absent from jobs would decrease and there would be an increase in worker morale and higher results of productivity

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Rep Walton of Texas

While it might lessen the negative impacts of the bill if the wage increase was 1 dollar opposed to 2, the increased would still be too much for small businesses to handle.  Jobs would still be lost because small businesses would not be able to instantly increase all of their workers' wages. A possible compromise would be to still lessen the wage increase, and to also gradually phase in the change to give small businesses time to absorb the affects.

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Lilian Thomas of Ohio Responding to Amaliia Steblynenko

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Lilian Thomas of Ohio Responding to Amaliia Steblynenko

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How will workers thrive after they have been cut from their jobs and are now unemployed because their employers do not have the financial stability to accommodate their new raises? With the increase in minimum wage, businesses are put at risk for bankruptcy and workers are at risk for unemployment.

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I, Representative Garziera of Florida do not support the bill proposed on a minimum wage increase of $2.00. I strongly believe that such bill is too sudden when inflation is only just slowing down to pre-pandemic levels. An aggressive minimum wage increase such as this will drive companies to increase their prices further, and lead to job losses and labor shortages. That is, the student population that makes up a large amount of workers working for minimum wage will be discouraged from work once their paychecks are high enough - this is called the backwards bending supply curve of labor, illustrated below. I propose that we can only expect a mild reaction from an increase as low as 0.50 dollars, and should not expect all states to match with the federal minimum wage: different states have different prices and inflation rates.

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Response to rep. Consentino from Rep. Schatmeyer

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Response to rep. Consentino from Rep. Schatmeyer

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I think you made excellent points on your position of raising the minimum wage. This bill would in-fact negatively impact small businesses because of the drawbacks that follow it, such as raising prices.

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I agree with the statement to raise minimum wage, but I do not agree with the fact that it should only be raised by one dollar. Raising the wages by one dollar will not be as affective because inflation is getting higher and higher as we speak.

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This bill is not in the best interest of the people or the economy.
While the morals behind its supporters are in good nature, the facts do not support this bill.  If the minimum wage was increased and instantly implemented, small businesses in particular would not be able to absorb the change.  Hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost as small businesses have to lay off workers to accommodate for the wage cuts.  Supporters of the bill have said that it will disproportionally benefit minority groups and low income families, but less than 1% of current minimum wage earners belong to
families with a total family income of $20,000 or less. In conclusion, an increase in minimum wage will hurt small businesses more than it will benefit any individuals.

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Rep Lapolla for the passage of H.R. Bill 3 with amendments

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Rep Lapolla for the passage of H.R. Bill 3 with amendments

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I, Representative John Lapolla of Montana am in support of passing the bill to increase minimum wage. However, I believe it is necessary to raise the wage by one dollar rather than two. This would help take stress off of small businesses who may not have resources to make that large of an increase to wages. I also propose that since we will have more revenue coming in from income taxes, we set some of that aside towards anti terrorism efforts.

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Representative Lilian Thomas of Ohio State

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Representative Lilian Thomas of Ohio State

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I, Lilian Thomas of Ohio, do not support the bill to increase minimum wage. Increasing the minimum wage would hurt both businesses and their workers. Many businesses may not be financially equipped to give a raise to their minimum wage workers. This would force the business owners to let go a lot of their employees just to increase the pay of some of their workers. Consequently, this would cause harm to the workers whom the businesses were unable to accommodate and were forced to let go.

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I believe that increasing the minimum wage could significantly increase the lives of low income workers and their families. For example, single mothers, and minority groups who would benefit from a slight wage increase.

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I, rep Schatmeyer of Jersey, implore that increasing the minimum wage by $2 rather than just $1 is incredibly dangerous.
This increase would result in a depletion of employees, which is incredibly dangerous for businesses and allots them no time. to adjust.
Also, this absurd amount of government money should and can be put somewhere else.

Peace and love.

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I, Currie Marchant, Representative of New Hampshire, support the bill to raise the minimum wage. I think that minimum wage should be raised, but not by very much. I propose that $2.25 is a good amount of money to raise it by because it can help people to support their families. It will not harm businesses because it is not being raised by a substantial amount.

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Though the increase could help support low-income families, this bill proposes a far too quick and aggressive increase that will have severe negative effects of the overall economic scene of the United States.

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Representative Devon Brunson of the Great State of Arizona

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Representative Devon Brunson of the Great State of Arizona

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I, Representative Devon Brunson of Arizona, do not support the bill on minimum wage increase. Yous guys must understand the pernicious effects on our local businesses
- the backbone of our country- that would result from such a large and immediate change in their ability to maintain a healthy business. Workers would be laid off, benefits would be cut, businesses would close their increasingly fragile doors. Our democracy would be dominated by corrupt big businesses like this privacy invading Facebook and Amazon. I support our great nation's business owners, and by striking down this law, you'll show that you do too.

Brunson out, yo!

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While decreasing the wage raise is a fair point, the time spent putting this requirement into effect should be increased in order to balance it out. Ideally there would not be a wage raise, as it places a large burden on small businesses and working class employees, but lowering the wage raise is a start.

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Increasing minimum wage will ruin businesses. Forcing businesses to increase their wages at the expense of fair consumer prices will not solve the issue of inflation. In increase of $2 will cause hundreds of thousands of people to lose their jobs because businesses will no longer have the money to pay their employees.

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Response to Rep Steblynenko from Rep Turansky

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Response to Rep Steblynenko from Rep Turansky

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I disagree-- increasing minimum wage could lead to employees being cut by businesses, which would negatively impact more people in the long run.

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I think you make some valid points, however I do not agree with the fact that minimum wage should be raised less than proposed. A 2 dollar raise would benefit employees who earn minimum wage further than a 1 dollar raise.

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Representative Lee of Montana is Against the Passage of H3

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Representative Lee of Montana is Against the Passage of H3

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Raising the minimum wage by $2 will devastate small businesses and their work forces. Studies show that when minimum wage was raised in the past, hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs because businesses could no longer afford to pay their employees. The last raise was by 50 cents, but this bill proposes $2. The rates of unemployment will increase exponentially. For small businesses, having a uniform minimum wage will eliminate entry level jobs altogether. Additionally, they will be forced to raise their prices to draw a larger profit; they will loose their business to larger competitors and be forced out of business, leaving their employees unemployed.

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I am Rep. Bella Cosentino of Florida- if we vote to raise the minimum wage, it will negatively affect entry level workers and small businesses. These businesses will be forced to raise prices, meaning less benefits and hours for employees and less customers, who will likely migrate to shopping at larger companies who are not affected by the wage raise. The timing of the bill is unnecessarily harmful as well, given that the short time frame of raising wage in 30 days is not a suitable amount of time for small businesses to adjust.

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I, Representative Steblynenko of Michigan approve this bill. Increasing minimum wage for workers allow them to thrive in an environment where inflation has taken a toll. This bill does not infringe on any civil liberties allowing it to be fairly implicated on state governments.

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Representative Sophie Turansky of New Jersey state 

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Representative Sophie Turansky of New Jersey state 

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My position on the bill is that it is pushing too far for too much.

An increase this much rolled out over only a month would not give time for businesses to adjust, and would end up cutting a lot of employees, and therefore make the employment crisis worse. A cut should be made from $2/hr increase to $1/hr increase, and be effective after six months, giving employers time to adjust their models and payroll accordingly.

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I, Representative Linnea Ransford of New Hampshire support this bill because in order to be able to support families and oneself the minimum wage must reflect this. I do propose we amend the raise to 1 dollar more not 2 bc 2 dollars would put businesses in more stress, and then we could review and increase another dollar at a later date

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Use this space to make a "speech" detailing your perspective on the proposed bill. Be sure to include
1. Your name (Rep. ________ of ________ state) 2. Your position on the bill
3. A persuasive argument supporting your stance

Then create a SECOND POST responding to a fellow member's speech. You could present a counterargument, or further the argument of a colleague (key word being FURTHER...don't just add agreement without more information/argument)