re: Birmingham City Council has raised minimum wage

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Please chime in if you have more than this simple one side of the story.

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The really simple side is they may not have the legal right to establish a minimum wage at all. They passed it without waiting on the legal department's opinion or asking for an AG's opinion.

Oh, and on the council pay raise. To be accurate, they did not vote themselves a pay raise. Under Alabama law, they can't vote to give themselves a raise. Their vote was to increase the salary for the next city council, which won't be seated until 2017.

It may sound like nitpicking since the possibility exists that some or all will be reelected and get the new salary, but it really is an important point. If the salary's a big enough deal to voters, they can opt to replace those who approved the increase and thus deny them the chance to ever collect it.

I really hope they vote them out (but doubt they will). 50k's a huge salary for what's supposed to be a part time legislative position. STATE legislators only make $43,000 a year and that job (while still considered part time) requires a ton more of the officeholder's time than does the job of Birmingham city council.