For Immediate Release
January 9, 2007
Contact: Josh Moenning
(402) 438-1598
Washington D.C. - Congressman Jeff Fortenberry today co-sponsored the Working Families Wage and Access to Health Care Act to raise the minimum wage while offering important support for small businesses and expanding access to affordable health care for America's working families.
"This legislation is socially just and economically responsible," Congressman Fortenberry said. "Combining a minimum wage increase with assistance to small business is good policy. It is the right thing to do."
The Working Families Wage and Access to Healthcare Act includes a proposed $2.10 increase in the minimum wage. It also extends current rules that allow small businesses to deduct the cost of depreciable assets in the first year for up to $100,000 in new equipment to improve the business. It reduces the depreciation period for new restaurant construction from 39 years to 15 years thus encouraging expansion, and it ends the unemployment surtax which currently makes it more expensive for employers to hire and pay low-wage workers.
Additionally, the bill will establish Small Business Health Plans that would allow small businesses to band together through associations to purchase health care for employees. This would increase their bargaining power with health care providers, and lower health care costs by as much as 30 percent.
Congressman Fortenberry is a member of the House Small Business Committee.
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