CONCORD -- The House voted 200-133 Wednesday to re-enact a $7.25-per-hour minimum wage in New Hampshire.

The bill now goes to the Senate, which recently tabled its own virtually identical version of a minimum wage bill.

In 2011, the House, then controlled by Republicans, repealed the state minimum wage, defaulting the state to the federal minimum wage requirement of the same $7.25 per hour.

This year’s original House bill called for a $8.25 minimum wage, but the majority amended of the Labor, Industrial and Rehabilitation Services Committee amended the bill downward by one dollar, calling it “a positive first step.”

Rep. Charles Weed, D-Keene, tried unsuccessfully to convince the House to increase the state minimum wage by 50 cents to $7.75. The House rejected it, 182-152.

“This amendment is an acknowledgment  that we need to do more for the most vulnerable people in our state,” he said.
“It acknowledges that the cost of living has increased rather substantially,” he said.

But Rep. Will Infantine, R-Manchester, said he agreed to restore a state minimum wage but he said, “It was never the intent of anyone on the committee to raise it higher” than the federal minimum wage.

Rep. Dan McGuire, R-Epsom, argued against any state minimum wage, saying, “If we want to improve the lot of low wage workers, it should be we, the taxpayers, and not those who are already employing those workers.”

Rep. Sally Kelly, D-Chichester, said New Hampshire is the only northern state that defaults to the federal minimum wage.

“This re-establishes New Hampshire’s authority to set its own minimum wage,” she said.