Congress votes to raise minimum wage
Legal News Feed
[##_1L|1334176476.jpg|width="140" height="135" alt=""|_##]The US Congress passed the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 Thursday, raising the federal minimum wage for the first time in almost a decade. The provision was introduced as an amendment to the Iraq War Supplemental Budget, and will raise the current minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $5.85 an hour within 60 days of enactment and to $7.25 an hour within two years of enactment. The provision, and the Iraq war spending bill, passed the Senate 80-14 and the House 280-142. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) called the raise "long overdue" and criticized Republicans for preventing previous minimum wage bills from passing earlier this year by joining measures that would give tax breaks to businesses. The White House voiced support for the increase, but spokesperson Tony Fratto said that we would "very much prefer that it be paired with appropriate offsets for small businesses who would be disproportionately impacted by the minimum-wage increase." A $4.9 billion tax package also passed along with the minimum wage bill.
The National Restaurant Association (NRA), which represents an industry that employs approximately 12.8 million workers in 935,000 locations, issued a statement Thursday criticizing the minimum wage increase, saying that it "will cost our industry jobs... and that the current $4.9 billion tax package" would not provide sufficient relief for employers most impacted. The NRA claims that the industry "lost more than 146,000 jobs" and delayed the employment of 106,000 new employees as a result of the 40-cent minimum wage increase in 1997.
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.