 We're going to do two different things, but we were going to discuss the Ways and Means Amendment on H107 to get a run-through on what the differences were between their bill and our bill, but they, the appropriations is still working on an amendment, which is why we're not going to see Damien immediately. They are looking to vote H107 out of appropriations as soon as today, but we won't know. So if Damien is relatively quick next door, he may pop his head in back and forth. He's also needed downstairs because the Senate Committee on Government Operations is busy voting out or working on last words on a bill that would affect registration of burn-hit victims from the Middle East, which we will get. It has been given dispensation for crossover, so we will get that bill when the Senate passes it through. So Damien has to be in about three different places this afternoon. We may not see much of him. In the meantime, we'll have Joyce here to talk about some of the analysis of S23. Matt Barrowich, who testified last week, was followed up on our questions and provided some material. I haven't looked at it, so I don't know if it addresses everything that we asked for. So this might be a little bit of a, you know, if we do see Damien, we can ask him better what he thinks his schedule is going to be. Ron, did you get anything clearer from him about his time? Just that he's going to, he has a few minutes now, but then he was going to go to give up for the S111, which is the burn-hit bill. He would possibly, depending on what's going on next door, just check in with us real quickly. All right, so we might have just a weird afternoon here after a long couple of weeks. He did just send me a short summary of, I'm just posting now, about one or seven. What's he posting? It just says a short summary, a short summary is recommended by the employees of the bill. Okay. We'll hold up on that for just a minute. All right. So Joyce, please join us in a different path that you've been, well, you started with, you started here on S23. Yes. Yes. But all morning I've been doing paid bailing, so if I start spouting the other way. Thank you for the rest of your time, Joyce. I just went to the office, and we're going to continue today with the preliminary results that I began presenting last week. Are you running? I have it up. I think I do now. My problem. Okay. So should we review or do you all remember where we're going with this? I agree. I agree, guys. Okay. Generally speaking, this is the bill that would raise the minimum wage from 10.78, where we are now, to $15 an hour in 2024. And there's a relatively smooth path to get there. I remember we talked about nominal dollars and why it's important to sometimes think in inflation-adjusted dollars and all that sort of thing. Okay. So I'm on section six, I think. What does the new modeling effort tell us? Okay. Now, why is a new modeling effort important? You remember that back in 2017, we had a summer fall study committee on raising the minimum wage. And at that time, Tom Kovett and Nick Rockler and Associates did some modeling of various paths. Last year, we had a revision in the path for the minimum wage, and we basically did some interpolation. We took the modeling results from the previous fall, which had gone to $15 in 2022, I believe. And we basically massaged them to represent what we thought would happen if the minimum wage went to $15 in 2024. But that was all based on older data and the older version of the model and so forth. So we felt this winter spring, it was important to ask the model to do its thing with an updated set of data on wages in Vermont and employers and so forth, and also with the updated version of the model. So we have those new results, and I'm going to slowly get into those results. Thank you. It's okay. Sure. It's fine. Good? Good. No. Okay, so eventually we're going to find out that the model results did not change much. Part of the reason for this is that the model used by Kovett and Rockler is the REDI model. It's sort of an input-outward model. It's a bit of a dynamic model. But basically it views the economy as being on a steady keel, and it imposes policy changes on that steady model, which is a steady economy and looks at the difference between the economy with the policy change and without the policy change. So in fact, whether the current unemployment rate is 2.9% or 2.4% or 3.5% isn't that important to the results that you get out of the model. What matters is the change between the economy that's in the model and the economy with the policy change in the model. Okay, so you're just looking at policy changes over time. And Remy again stands for Regional Economic Model Inc., I believe. Okay, and this is something that is a standard tool used all over the country for many different types of policy changes. But trying to apply some form of apples to apples at least on a base scale. Oh yes, and there's lots of detailed data that go into the model thinking about how policy changes would affect wages, behavior, prices, all those economic things. Okay, so I just told you that the Remy model relies on a baseline economy devoid of business cycle effects and imposes a policy change on that baseline economy. So the effects of the increase in the minimum wage do not look much different in the model itself except that what's being modeled this year is a little bit steeper because we're starting one year later than last year, right? So you can see in the picture that the red line is S23, the current version of the bill. And what we were looking at last year was S40, the green line that started rising a little bit sooner. So the changes were a bit more gradual. Now we have a little bit steeper. Okay, so I mentioned earlier that the model can now look at updated data sources. So they now use the American Community Survey 2012 to 2016. So when you're dealing with Vermont, you usually have to use a five-year average because Vermont is such a small state that the sampling each year is a very small number. So you want to group the sampling together over five years and then take an average. Okay, and they also use the Occupational Employment Survey, which is actually a U.S. DOL survey of employers. The most recent one from Vermont is 2017 now. So those data sources were both updated. And again, just to reiterate here, so the analysis that was done from 2012 to 2016 differed from the previous one that gave us the .93 percent because that came in from an earlier set that included the recession. And when the .93 is big family leaves, isn't it? Yes, I'm sorry, I confused that. I'm sorry, so for this data too, so for this data, the previous assumptions were being made on a set of years that included recession, is that right? Four years of recession, that's right. That's right, so now we've kind of moved a little bit out. And that's the point of this picture that I'm going to show you now. If you look at inflation-adjusted Vermont GDP growth, previously they were using 2011 to 2015, and you can see that it included 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014. All of those years were closer to being in recession, right? And we've now shifted to the right, to the red lines. So we're now a little bit further away from the recession. So that's good. Okay, and I also wanted to talk a little bit about the consensus forecasts. So if you think about unemployment and how unemployment looked in Vermont, the earlier forecast from December of 2016, this is the consensus forecast, the administration, and the legislative economists, so this is Kavette and Jeff Carr. In December of 2016, they were looking at a little bit higher unemployment rate, and as of December 2018, it's the lower green, dark, dark green line, so the economy's looking a little bit stronger. Okay, and employment growth in Vermont looks quite different, actually, this is kind of interesting. So as of December 2016, you can see that they were expecting quite strong employment growth. That blue line is going up over the hill there. But by December 2018, I think demographics were catching up to us, and the employment growth is thought to be a little bit slower. But they ended up in the same place? Yes. Not quite sure why. Something happened in 2016-2017. Not sure why. Okay, and now... But that looks similar. Yeah, but it's not that different. These are growth rates, right? So instead of a 1.5% growth rate, they're talking about a 0.4% growth rate. So it's a growth rate, not a number. So I'm talking about minimal weight. Hi. Hello. Did you think I was talking about big family weight? No. No? You're all important, and you saw that. Oh, you did? Yes. Representative Munch. So, do you know how our graphs and how our unemployment situation looks in comparison to other states? Well, we are very low relative to other states. Our unemployment rate is 2.4%, I believe. I may have been updated recently, but last time it was 2.4%, which is very low. I think the nationwide unemployment rate is 2.8%, which is 2.9%, which is also very low. But we're even lower than that. And what about the economic growth? Let's see. I do not have economic growth on my tongue. I know that generally speaking, in recent quarters from lots, economic growth has been a bit lower than the nationwide average. I'm guessing it's 1.5% to 2%, but we can check easily online in a minute. Okay. And what's considered a healthy unemployment rate or what's, because at some point, it kind of backs up on itself. Yes, absolutely. So, in the old days, before this recent economic expansion, it used to be that 4% unemployment was sort of standard, full employment, unemployment, right? So that's the unemployment rate at which it was thought there would be very little pressure on prices to rise. So that's 4%. Now, I would think that people are rethinking that benchmark because our economy is now at, what, 2.9% something like this unemployment and we're not seeing a lot of inflation pressures. So whether this is a temporary thing or whether this is the new normal, I'm not ready to say. I don't know that there's a consensus out there. Right, but it's causing people to reassess. Yes, absolutely. Conventional wisdom was 4%. Right. And what about, how does that work in terms of, we talked a little bit about last week about people who are out of the workforce. Has that number changed along with the 2.5%? So I know nationwide there has been a resurgence of folks who were out of the labor force coming back in and that has been part of what's keeping wages down because if you don't have enough bodies, either you have to find bodies from the woodwork or you have to raise wages, right? And so far there have been enough folks coming in from out of the workforce to become part of the workforce so that wages have not had to rise very much. It wasn't, I seem to remember a testimony a couple years ago on this, that, or a lot of times last year where we thought that some people were coming back into the workforce because the minimum wage was going up. I think in the old days we used to judge inflation, we used to judge jobs, unemployment on higher paying jobs. And now that there's so much manufacturing is overseas and there's less in the United States. I mean these are all very general statements. But that, I seem to remember hearing testimony last year that people were coming, some of those people who had not been seeking work were coming back into the workforce because wages are, at the service level at least are increasing. So I'm not aware of that testimony but it sounds plausible. It's also true that people know that the economy is doing better and so they believe they have a better chance of finding a job when they come back in to look for a job, right? They hear that the economy is growing and so they're more optimistic that they'll be able to find work so that's part of it too. And of course during the recession everybody knows that the unemployment rate is very high that it's very difficult to find jobs and so forth. So there's lots of factors that go into a person's decision to come back into the workforce. Okay so now we're going to move to the big table two. Now table two for those of you who were around last year was part of the fiscal note that accompanied S40 last year. What I'm showing you here is the results from S40 where those results are in black and are marked old and then the new results for S23 that come from the new modeling effort are in blue and on the right, okay? And I do not anticipate including both sets of results in the new fiscal note. I will include the new results but for some of you who were around last year it might be helpful to see that things have changed a little bit but not very much. Now one thing to note is the years that I'm showing. So last year when I was looking at S40 the first year of change was 2019, right? And then we left it 2019, 2020 and the $15 year which was 2024. And this year the change starts in 2020 so I'm showing you 2020 and 2021 and also 2024 which is the year again in which we reach $15 an hour. So the outcomes are explained down the left-hand side of the table and I will walk through these and mostly talk about the new results. If there are questions about the new results relative to the old results we can try to address those as well but I think you should be interested in the new results now, right? That's what would apply for S23. Okay and I shall also mention now I hope this doesn't cause trauma. The results for the old bill S40 last year were presented in 2018 dollars because back then we were in 2018 and we were using 2018 dollars. It did not make sense to me to present this year's results in 2018 dollars now in 2019. So I'm presenting old results in 2018 dollars new results in today's dollars in 2019 dollars. So if you want to do the translation you can multiply 2018 dollars by 2.5 percent increase them by 2.5 percent because that's expected inflation between 2018 and 2019. And one more clarification So using that top line when we see that in 2024 it says 25 percent I'm sorry the second line the share of jobs so it says that 21.8 percent of the jobs in 2024 on the far right corner that's the number of jobs now or the percentage change of jobs that are between the minimum wage and $15 an hour. Is that right? So that's the share of jobs now at less than $13.43 which remember is today's value of $15 an hour. So it says if with my magic wand I could change the minimum wage to $13.43 today and then ask how many jobs the answer would be in 2020. And today they're at today they're at $31.9 or $26.7 or whatever that is next year will be that's how many jobs will be at the equivalent. So you're looking at the third line? Yeah. Okay so this says that if the minimum wage were to rise to what was the number? $11.50 in 2020 there would be 26,770 jobs and $11.50 or less. Alright so I'm sorry I need to work this over. You jumped down three lines. Okay so the first line simply tells you the percentage change probably percentage change from 2018 actually 2019 minimum wage inflation adjusted so you've seen these numbers before because we looked at the inflation adjusted proposed minimum wage last week so it's an increase of 4% in 2020 a 9% increase in 2021 and a 25% increase by 2024 so that shows you the jump in the inflation adjusted minimum wage relative to current law. Line two we've now talked about this already the approximate share of jobs at less than the proposed minimum wage oh yes DOL basis okay so the Department of Labor looks at the number of jobs not the number of people employed in minimum wage jobs okay and this all makes sense because the Department of Labor talks to employers right and they say how many jobs do you have at this wage, how many jobs do you have at this wage so they're looking at jobs they do not know if one person is working three jobs in different places or five jobs or whatever right so this is the number of jobs that pay less than the proposed minimum wage okay and we know that minimum wage workers low wage workers on average have 1.5 jobs 1.6 jobs I like this so many minimum wage jobs no many minimum wage workers have more than one job okay approximate number of jobs at less than the proposed minimum wage and again this is the DOL counting jobs not people so by 2024 about 66,440 jobs will be paying at or less than the proposed minimum wage $15 alright now the initial wage bill change as a share of total wages and salary think of all the wages earned by people at or below the minimum wage and then think of all wages and salaries in the economy so if you think of how much that minimum wage total wage bill is going to change as a share of total wages and salaries the answer is 1.1% by 2024 okay so that tells you how much it tells you that in fact minimum wage workers as a share of all wages out there in Vermont are only getting a little tiny extra okay so with the change and the next line tells you in aggregate what's the initial income gain of low wage workers and the answer is by 2024 they will gain $196 million okay so that's extra money in the markets of minimum wage workers and that represents just 1.1% of the total right that change is 1.1% of the total wages and salary okay and these are all numbers that pop out of Remy so Remy was very much adjusted to fit the Vermont economy so Remy has a much better idea of what's going on tonight okay now have we talked about the fact that the state budget is going to both gain and lose money as a consequence of raising the minimum wage I'm not sure we've actually talked about that this year not quite like that we've talked about the benefit cliffs we've talked about okay so that's all related right okay so first realize that if minimum wage workers are earning higher wages they will then pay higher income taxes on those wages right so there will be some gains in terms of increased tax revenue they might also be able to buy a used car more frequently or more clothing for their kids or clothing is in tax so that's a bad example anyway they're able to buy more goods and services all of those things add up to a little bit more tax revenue for for the state budget at the same time those minimum wage workers because they're earning more may be eligible for lower benefits right and that means that the state doesn't have to pay out so much in benefits childcare assistance program reach up fuel assistance all of those low wage programs provided by the state so the balance is a net fiscal gain to the state of 17 million by 2024 okay so so is it safe to say that this money that is in people's pockets they were expected to be spending in the economy will have an impact carried over to corporate taxes or business tax revenues increased so it is true that that is all appropriated in the revenue model I you know we were asked previously if there would be an impact on GDP in the early years it's so small that it's not discernible eventually we're going to get to the long term effects and we will see that there's a tiny impact on GDP thank you so again this is something that if that $17 million figure is the result of having paid a higher wage to increase the state through tax revenue and decrease right so if I have gone up a level even with the changes that Deb Brighton showed in say this child care moving it up the ladder a little bit those are not included here because in part what we're trying to do here is to figure out if the state is gaining enough revenue from the minimum wage changes to pay for the moving out the cliff in the CCFAP program and I believe for a testimony on that was yes you can see and even in the first year the gain is about $4.5 million so again the economic theory such as it is here is by increasing the wages we're increasing taxes lowering benefits in order to pay greater benefits to the people who do qualify okay so that's the good news that the state gains what $17 million by 2024 now the bad news is that the state also loses a significant amount of revenue from the federal government and again that's because federal benefits are going to go down primarily Medicaid right that targets low income folks also food stamps which is a federal program what else is based on low income I think those are the two biggies could be LIHEAP which is federal and also folks are paying increased federal taxes because their income has gone up due to the increase in their wages okay so we can add all those things together the net reduction in federal funds to Vermont's economy is about $63 million by 2024 and that simply results of boosting low wage workers in terms of their income so they're paying more federal taxes they're receiving fewer federal benefits but that's and that's what people do in a world where we think that people go up in salary anyway it's bad news only in that it's money taken from the pot but it also represents the social mobility that we expect increased wages to do it is a consequence for our economy that will show up okay okay now talk about likes the term disemployment and I'm sorry about that but he is quite consistent that disemployment is the word to use approximate net disemployment is just telling you the number of jobs that could be lost okay so it's about 90 jobs in the first year and it ramps up to about 800 jobs by 2024 so that says that all across the Vermont economy there might be 800 fewer jobs relative to baseline so this does not say that we're now at whatever 300,000 jobs and we're going to drop down by 800 it says we're now at 300,000 we would expect a small increase over time and by the time we get to 2024 if this increase in the minimum wage passes we'd expect to be 800 below where we would have this okay and this is not even people losing their jobs this is 800 fewer jobs going back to what we talked about earlier 21.8% of our jobs our minimum wage below jobs and so this is just saying and again we talked a little bit about whatever number of reasons it could be part of we can't judge it on population loss the working force that we've talked about so this is just saying it's possible that the jobs are it's possible that the jobs are being lost because someone's not working 1.6 jobs anymore they might be working 1.2 jobs or those jobs just may change or not be available so this sort of takes into account change in hours, change in jobs all those things, pushes it together into about 800 and that's I mean that's a well under 1% I didn't say it's cause of it it's because of the increase in minimum wage growth this is because of the policy change right? we sort of isolated the economy on a steady state baseline and we just imposed this minimum wage change to see what happens and the result is we are down about 800 jobs relative to baseline in 2024 now it's very common to be able to say we've lost 800 jobs we have 800 fewer jobs than we have today 800 fewer than would have been present in the baseline economy so there could still be a net positive there could be a net positive there could be a net negative right again the important part is jobs not people also true ok shall we move on to the long run absolutely ok so the bottom of the table talks about long run, long term long term outcomes so this is a little bit hard for people to get in their heads so so we're thinking about 2025 to 2040 which is a 15 year period right? it's a long period of time and things are going to be happening in the economy there are going to be business cycles and there are going to be ups and downs but this is an attempt to say if you could average out all those little fluctuations over time think about a steady baseline economy chugging along through time and now impose that policy change and where do you end up do you end up a little bit above where you would have been in the long term baseline or do you end up a little bit below ok so the first result here talks about the net annual long term disemployment and again this is the number of jobs and I'm sorry I have to use the term disemployment but here we are ok so this says on average if you think about the economy chugging along because of this minimum wage policy change there would be about 1845 fewer jobs in the economy each year it does not say you're losing 1845 jobs each year this is commonly I just saw this in a news story last week it is not right what you want to think of is 1845 fewer jobs than would have been in the economy in each year right each year every year you're below where you would have been no no I understand that I guess my question is do you say 1800 each year or in total of the 15 no no each year there are 1845 jobs below where you would have been so if you were at 300,000 jobs under baseline now you're at 202 so is that a sustained number or a repetitive retraction every year the difference is on average is 1845 but is that like a repetitive net retraction it's just sustained the difference between where we are under minimum wage and where we would have been under the baseline is 1845 that's the difference it's not 1845 a year the difference is on average 1845 okay it does not mean you're losing 845 jobs every year no I understand it's not a loss but it's like just non-existent it's lower than you would have been yeah it's extrapolating to 800 a little bit right and things do accumulate over time people who are able to stay in business fast food restaurants for example who are able to stay in business for 5 years maybe after 10 years went out of business that's why you want to look at the long term right and 15 years I'm going to just use my age again as a bellwether for the baby boom or 55 in 15 years let's just say 70 hopefully most of the baby boomers are out of the workforce except by choice that makes a different impact that's going to be a whole different impact than these are not captured here right so this is steady economy and then impose a policy change and where do you end up you end up 1845 jobs lower than you would have been in the long term just nothing to do with the size of the workforce right that might be right size it's just because there's a drop in them but we don't have those numbers today unknown okay and in the long term what is disemployment as a share of total jobs and the answer is 0.4% so this says that the number of jobs would be 0.4% lower than it would have been on average over those 15 years okay this is really important because so many people don't understand and therefore in this state the effect and it sounds much worse than it really is if you don't like the word disemployment I would say that job lost okay so then we have disemployment as a share of total jobs size of the same as the above line this is a problem clearly the scribe that would be me has a problem oh one is supposed to be as a share of low wage jobs 2.8% let's see 2.8% of low wage jobs have been lost right we're down 2.8% of low wage jobs 0.4% of total jobs okay so I need to fix that really so that 2.8% of difference I think there are two days of looking at it there are 2.8% of low wage jobs because now they're in higher category or just they just aren't there I think they're not there that's what the 1845 represents yeah they're gone yeah the people are still there the people have moved dust right that's a good thing but there are fewer jobs in that low wage category what impact has jobs going overseas mechanization are they all factored in here or that's all part of the baseline that's happening regardless of a change in the minimum wage and part of that loss of jobs that could from a human perspective that could go from someone going from 1.6 jobs to 1.2 jobs so that's which you can do if you're making a higher theoretically if you're making a higher wage you would work less hours in order to make the wage you were making before I understand it's jobs but can this show people as well or is that impossible that's a common question so Deb Brighton and Tom Kovett are the folks who try to make that translation and they would say that if on average a low wage worker works 1.5 jobs you could think about this as you know divide by 1.5 but of course it's not going to be the same it's not going to be one person who currently works 1.5 jobs who loses that job right so it's spreading these jobs are spread across more people who loses a job works fewer hours works fewer hours right I'm coming back to 2.8% excuse me but isn't there an issue there because the definition of a low wage job is going to change as the wage scale changes this is relative to well so I can't say for sure if this is at the minimum wage and below or if this takes into account there was a wider range that was used for some of the analysis and I'm not 100% sure if that's used here or not but at some point there was the possibility that this minimum wage change would flow through to slightly higher paying jobs right and that's called the spillover or something so it may be that these low wage jobs include jobs that pay up to let's say $19 an hour $20 an hour there's low wage definition of a low wage job might change because the scales move it but I mean that's what we're looking at low wage jobs shall we move on to GDP please so as you know gross domestic product is the value of all goods and services produced in the Vermont economy and the question is what happens to the level of Vermont GDP so we are not talking about the growth rate we are talking about what's the total amount of goods and services produced under current law and what would be the total amount of goods and services produced in Vermont after this change in the minimum wage and the answer according to the model is that Vermont GDP would be a bit lower by 0.28% so the negative effect is there but it's very small and it's probably stemming mostly from the reduction of funds flowing into the state there's also some negative effect from the loss of jobs so some people are going to be without that income that lets them spend and help the Vermont economy right so again that's 0.28% of what it will be so if there was a GDP what is our normal GDP what is an average GDP for us billions of dollars that's a knowable number but I'm just saying that if it were going to be $100 or whatever if it were $100 then it would be basically $99.72 or something like that under this scenario that's right so it would still go up or it would still exist it would just be changed by this much for that to the amount of a disemployed job exactly right Vermont GDP does someone have this already $26 billion so if we take can we do this have you done the math already okay so this requires me to put in loss of zeros do you want to know or not no no just like under the baseline versus so this doesn't take a GDP if it were measured in a percentage basis of 3.2% of minus 0.28% it just it's shaving the 0.28 off of whatever does exactly happen under the baseline and GDP it only measures it doesn't measure home production for example it does not measure home production so if some the usual example is the wife who stays at home if she cooks all of the family's meals the value of her time and her cooking skills and so forth if she goes off to be a chef at a restaurant and she gets paid for that then the value of her skills and her time and so forth is included in GDP it's an imperfect measure absolutely but we had this conversation earlier today about the basic needs budget it's imperfect but it's what we have I think is one of the ways that we have to do business here yes but this seems completely significant it's 2% so it's small, it's controversial because there are many different ways to look at the effects of the minimum wage some people would say it should increase the value of GDP some people would say it's likely to have a bigger negative effect on GDP so there are different ways of looking at this and this is sort of a small but slightly negative effect have there been any studies that have yet have been done or comparisons that have been done against for instance in our Connecticut River Valley we so constantly talked about the differences between Connecticut but New Hampshire and Vermont but since we've gone to 1050 and New Hampshire hasn't I know when I go to the McDonald's in Lebanon they're advertising people to work at our minimum wage have there been any studies that have shown the difference in any economic study of worth that would measure the minus of having the difference in the minimum wage or is that just going to be in the case of the borders just something that we notice and say oh look they're paying their people as much as they're paying here it doesn't seem to matter to us as much as it would for the service economy on the New Hampshire side but I've heard in the past we're going to get our lunch eaten if we pay much and that's something that it's out there yes so so this is a complicated area it is true that the New Hampshire house just passed a minimum wage bill that would raise their minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2022 so they are feeling some pressure to increase wages for those paid workers so that's interesting we'll see if it goes through the senate and the governor may be to it anyway in New Hampshire so we'll see what happens there there have been a number of attempts to try to look at the significance of the big wage differential between New Hampshire and Vermont Tom Covet might remember did a study for the summer study committee back in 2017 unfortunately the bottom line is that there are so many factors other than just the minimum wage differential that differ across the border that it's really hard to pinpoint what's going on they have very different land use rules for example they allow big box stores and Vermont does not and big box stores tend to hire low paid workers and so you would expect to see more low paid workers on that side of the border in the big box stores so there are many many factors that have to go into the determination of what's going on so it's really tough to say but it is true that in general markets work and if you can't find a worker at 725 which is the minimum wage in New Hampshire then you raise the wage until you can attract a worker to your place of business and so it turns out that in Lebanon they end up paying Vermont's minimum wage or even better you know sometimes it's almost an hour on those fast restaurant signs so you know people adjust, markets adjust things happen I'm going to check in with Damien who is much desired this afternoon so how long do we have before? what is your afternoon look like? I told them I'd be back around 215 and that's just next door or they're going to be in a couple minutes so I think they're only going to need to talk to him for about 15 minutes so no I'm done downstairs they voted S111 and it will be coming here presumably early next week so and that is a veterans bill so so Joyce I think we're at the end of that preliminary presentation yes thank you Damien I don't think we could deal with 207 today okay it just let's just stick with minimum wage and we asked you to come in and start just walking through the existing minimum wage statute yeah so I got a power point on that we can start and see how far we get there's lots to talk about and you also have Derrick Anderson and Jared Adler from the department here who may be able to offer some tidbits about some of the things that we'll talk about in that statute too so this is going to be an historical look at the minimum wage statute we don't often do this but I just think for this bill in particular even with what's in the bill that exists that it would be worth a while to understand the context of what we're working on if people have their hard copies then Damien you said you had a power point I do I'm going to pull it up and okay go on do you want I do I don't like the happiness of you know laugh I feel like everything except that paper there all that signature there is anyone else okay thank you for being here okay great wrong thought caught up excellent well thank you for the record Damien Lennard legislative council so what I'll do is kind of walk you through Vermont's wage in our statutes and I want to just be clear here there are two sub chapters one is sub chapter two which relates to how and when you have to send people their paychecks and what the remedies are if you don't actually give the person a paycheck the other one is what I'm referring to as the wage in our statutes which is our minimum wage sub chapter which is sub chapter three of chapter 5 title 21 and that covers what's the minimum wage what do you do for overtime and then there are some rather dated references in there to for example the wage board which I believe the last member of the wage board according to Steve Monaghan passed away in the early 80s so that will give you an idea of how outdated some of the languages I assume so at that point but we'll also talk a little bit about some of the old rules that are left over in here that are bestiges of the 1950s when our law was adopted so a little historical background our wage in our statutes were not given at 303 of 1957 they were modeled on the Fair Labor Standards Act the original minimum wage was 75 cents an hour which was increased a dollar per hour in 1959 and I need to just say here for those of you who are with us last year I cited the dollar an hour in 1959 as our first minimum wage in Vermont and I was wrong it was 75 cents an hour in 1957 and it was increased a dollar an hour in 1959 so what kind of wage an hour law existed prior to 1957 so prior to that there was the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act which was enacted in 1938 is that right Dirk? do you know what's up your head? and the Fair Labor Standards Act was part of the New Deal legislation from FDR that and some of the other bills that passed them for those of you who are Supreme Court nerds was part of the so-called switch in time that saved nine FDR was going to pack the Supreme Court in order to get this New Deal through because they kept overturning every law and towards the end of his push they decided to change their tune on the New Deal laws which saved the nine person Supreme Court and the Fair Labor Standards Act was one of those acts that made it through after the Supreme Court decided to stop striking down the New Deal legislation so but the Fair Labor Standards Act included child labor standards wage and hour standards and so forth what we're focused on here is the minimum wage and I unfortunately don't know a lot about labor history in terms of wage and hour before the Fair Labor Standards Act came into play what I can tell you is that the original Fair Labor Standards Act had a lot of very large exceptions to it that were slowly filled in over time and then states began adopting their own wage and hour laws to supplement it to deal with some local conditions that weren't covered by Fair Labor Standards Act and over time those two laws have diverged a bit for a very long time for Montt stay very close to the federal minimum wage and now we were more than $3.50 apart from the federal minimum wage which is probably close to not the largest gap that we've had in history from that dollar amount so from 1959 through 2016 our nominal minimum wage increased by an average of 4.6% per year but when you adjust for inflation by the consumer price index the minimum wage increased by an average of only 0.8% per year and actually if you adjust by other inflation figures it was closer to 0% so it just depends on how you measure inflation for some of these things so what's the policy behind all of this the public policy declared in the chapter in section 381 is that workers in any occupation should receive wages sufficient to provide adequate maintenance to protect their health and to be fairly commensurate with the value of the services rendered that language is unchanged from 1957 so that was the original expressed policy intent of the legislature in the act so inadequate maintenance has a synonymous with being able to pay your bills I mean it's now used very infrequently but yeah so it's hard for me to say exactly what without doing a lot of sort of digging exactly what they were getting at but you could certainly interpret it as adequate to pay your bills to maintain a livable a standard of living and health would seem to be sort of complimentary but it's not clear whether they were intending that an individual working X number of hours a week at the minimum wage should be able to make you know this particular standard of living or whether they were anticipating that you know you're looking at multiple adults working or what and so that's that's something where adequate maintenance and protection of health seem to indicate some sort of minimum standard of living but it's hard to say what that was without bringing ourselves back in time to the 1950s and it's I would say even with what we had the archives were unlikely to get a really good sense of that because just so much of what happened in these rooms back then was not recorded so even when you go back and pull the files out you might get a couple scribbled notes but there's no context and it's hard to tell what people were thinking and actually with I can't remember if it was the 1957 bill or the 1959 bill if you look at the journal for when it came out and can't remember if it was the house or the senate that advanced it but the committee of jurisdiction actually recommended it, voted it out unfavorably but then the body overruled them and passed it so that is something you almost never see but they were apparently asked to bring it to the floor so they did but with the committee vote against the bill and then the bill subsequently passed okay so I want to be conscious of my time and I don't have a clock so what do you want a clock? just a quarter past and then that would be great, thank you and then when you get in there if you have an impression of how long you if you get a sense of how long you may be I have a feeling I'm going to be drafting an amendment this afternoon yeah it's a chunk of it's draft but depending on what happens during our conversation with commissioner Peechak and during subsequent conversations I may have a lot of it may become a lengthy amendment you're on, they're going to call you now yes, that sounds great so coverage is for employers employing two employees or more so and that again is unchanged from the original 1957 language so then we get into this is one of the really interesting areas of the bill here and I'm omitting a chunk of the definition section here and focusing really on the the most interesting section here so first is so an employee is any individual who's employed or permitted to work by an employer and before I move on this is an important thing because it's saying employers it's not just if you have a direct employer employee relationship where you hired the individual it's someone that you're committing to work and the goal of this was to address this was actually a common feature back in the teens and 20s where employers would try to get around early efforts at workplace legislation by saying well I'm not the employer all I did was hired Joe from down the street and said I need some shirts made and Joe hired kids running the looms but I don't actually employ those kids so the fact that one of the kids got injured it's not my fault and I have no responsibility for them so this is basically saying look if you permit someone to work in your place of business you have a responsibility to make sure that they're paid minimum wage now obviously in the days of independent contractors and subcontractors it's often the subcontractor who has to pay their employees or the contractor who's paying their employees but this is to put it in there to get some ability to go after people who are trying to sidestep the laws to avoid paying minimum wage so any individual employed in agriculture and in just a second we'll talk about what exactly is agriculture but this is an important one agricultural work is generally excluded from our minimum wage and it is also excluded under the Fair Labor Standards Act with some exceptions which we could probably spend a day on but we'll go into the general definition the next is any individual employed in domestic service in or about a private home and we're going to talk about this too but this is what I like to refer to as the babysitter exception because this is what makes it so you don't have to comply with wage and hour laws when you have a babysitter so agriculture and we don't have a definition of agriculture in our statutes so what I'm doing here is reaching to in our wage and hour statutes we have several definitions of agriculture elsewhere that vary depending on the statute so in general when we don't have a definition we can look to the Fair Labor Standards Act for guidance although ultimately the interpretation of our law for enforcement purposes falls on these gentlemen from the Department of Labor but we can look to the Fair Labor Standards Act to get an idea of what we're dealing with here and then if a question came up about what agriculture is the Department of Labor would make a determination about whether that particular instance fell under the exception so in the case of this where there's no definition of agriculture in the minimum wage law and that presumably this language was created if not changed since 1957 would labor you can just nod your head yes or no but would labor go back to 1957 to see what definitions existed then or would they use more modern definitions that might have been added since then so I'll defer to Dirk here to start yes this answer thank you Mr. Chair Dirk Anderson of the Department of Labor in determining what agriculture is today if we were to look at the minimum wage exemption in the context of a complaint we would we'd have to reconcile the current definition in your federal law I think with all of Vermont's various definitions of agriculture as Damien says there are many depending you know which green book you're looking in so it would be a case by case analysis but we wouldn't be originalists we wouldn't say this this is what agriculture meant in 1957 right which is a key point because some of this language that is a vestige of 1957 that hasn't been changed but there are definitely some differences in how we define so no it's good to not it's so like employee elsewhere in statutes we would make it just somewhere along the lines there would be a policy decision made whether it was here as a statute or there in the department to choose the closest one or to create one I think what they I think what Dirk is trying to say is that they would take a look at federal law they take a look at state law and try to find the most accurate definition for it in the context of Vermont and the other thing to keep in mind too is that the wage in our law is a remedial law so it's written to remedy underpayment of workers to ensure that they get a minimum wage and so when you're construing it you tend to construe the law for the benefit of the worker which we've talked about in the context of the student wage exemption where instead of the construing the definition of student as broadly as possible the department of labor construed students working during all or part of the school year to mean secondary school students working during the actual school year and not the break between school years so again they're looking at what's protective of employees unless the legislature has indicated otherwise so that would be some of the context there but you know it's I think the important thing to remember too is that it's this sort of interpretation comes up when there is a complaint or a claim brought to the department and then they have to look in the context of that case and the facts of that case to make a determination about those facts and then interpret the law based on the facts in front of them and how the law might apply to those facts so we could do a lot of speculating here but the bottom line is I think that you know they would look to other parts of state law and to the federal wage in our laws so for our purposes what I've done is just kind of given you an idea of where the federal wage in our laws on agriculture and on domestic service I did not check with to see if the departments have rulings on these issues in the past so there may be other context here but just for purposes of putting this together what we've done is done this so for federal purposes agriculture includes farming in all of its branches cultivation of soil dairying growing are hard to see any agricultural or forticultural commodity that should have been included before the ellipses the raising of livestock bees for bearing animals poultry and any practices including forestry and lumbering performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations including preparation for market delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for transportation to market and without going too far off the beaten track this question about forestry or lumbering operations performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with the farming operations has come up in other contexts outside of wage and hour law and then the question becomes if there's a farmer running a lumbering operation is that the same as if there's a farmer who's doing forestry to maintain a sugar bush or to to maintain the edges of pasture land or to expand pasture land and these are things where you again would need to look at case law and other interpretations in the past and my recollection of this comes up from when I was a law clerk and we had a zoning case about whether someone was entitled to the agricultural exemption for an organ shop that they ran on the family farm and used lumber from the farm for the organ shop and whether the planing and saw milling operations at that outbuilding that they constructed counted as an agricultural practice and were therefore exempt from zoning so but that's way far afield from this but very interesting case Representative Franklin with cutting a timber to supplement with your income on within the farm or on the farm is that included would that be it's hard for me to say and I don't think I'm prepared to answer that it is quite a tradition for a long time right and I think it's part of what you look at is this an established regular farming practice or is this a different industry altogether that we don't consider part of farming but these are things that the department would face if a question came up and if it's something that you would need to consider if you wanted to put in an express definition and I should say that this is the definition of agricultural for the federal purposes but they have an entire sub chapter of the code of federal regulations devoted to what is agriculture and what is not which is longer than this entire bill or our entire minimum wage chapter by itself so I have to ask a question about the value added product made on the farm there are cases about when after something has left the farm is it no longer part of the farming operation what if they put the cannery on the farm so on and so forth yeah so okay alright so domestic service this is again where looking at this is from the code of federal regulations so and this is basically saying what are these domestic services that are not covered and it includes services performed by employees such as companions, babysitters, cooks, waiters, butlers valets, maids, housekeepers nannies, nurses, janitors et cetera going on so some of these are services that many of us would be familiar with like babysitters or potentially a housekeeper others are services that I imagine most of us have never had the pleasure of experiencing such as a butler butler, valet or a chauffeur of automobiles for family use which I am looking forward to that definitely you are one yeah right but anyway so it also includes home health aids fair aids things that we come across in and so this is under federal regulations and again under our statute we don't define domestic service and to the best of my knowledge there are instances that are covered here where our, so I shouldn't say to the best of my knowledge, but there are instances that are covered here that our state might want to cover where this job is no longer performed by someone who lives in the household with the family and would be otherwise exempt but this is another example where this is the definition but then the federal government has gone much further and defined all sorts of exceptions and instances when it doesn't apply because they are trying to prevent people who for example pay a cleaning service to come in or pay someone on an hourly basis a couple times a month and I am using this as an example without knowing for sure that this is an exception just to be clear but they are addressing instances where they say this exception doesn't apply well the last sentence of this really gets to that point which is yes this is just kind of grinding you in a little bit of an idea of what the possible universe you are dealing with could be and again to the best of my knowledge we don't have any rulings on that but I haven't had a chance to talk to Dirk about this so if this is something the committee wants to pursue you'll definitely want to hear from the Department of Labor and then take a closer look at the regulations and some of the case law around this to decide if there are things you would want to include or exclude or if you just want to leave the language as is and wait for the cases to come up and just again to be clear this isn't someone who says I have a maid's service I will come to your house and I will invoice you that you are not an employee then if I hire two people for the definition I can pay these folks the federal minimum wage is that right I still have to pay them that or are they exempt from that even so my understanding and my understanding is that there is some exclusion for domestic service under the Fair Labor Standards Act I would need to go back and look closely at what the requirements are because in the context of this I just haven't had a chance to do that but for purposes of our statute we'll use for example babysitter analogy where it's someone who comes to your house occasionally performs babysitting duties for you you don't have to comply with the wage and hour statutes for that individual at least according to this they're not considered an employee for purposes of the statute so record keeping and so forth you don't have to keep records of every time I've had my neighbor's doctor over to babysit for my daughters you know and I fortunately don't have to file reports with the Department of Labor although we do pay a lot of minimum wage if you just want them to do the babysitter analogy your children are repriseless I actually have to say when she first started babysitting for us she said oh I'm happy to do it but I forgot one about what she said and it was like below minimum wage I was like I don't feel really right doing that because you can earn minimum wage at your regular job so anyway that's another time I think this is illustrative of the complexity of sentences that don't have to back up to them right and we've got a bunch of those in our exceptions so those were two of the ones that are a little meatier the next one is any individual employed by the United States so we don't tell the federal government what to pay its employees and this was this also originally included an exemption from the minimum wage for state employees and an exemption for employees of the political subdivisions of the state so that would be towns and counties towns and counties lost their exemption in 1977 the state lost its exemption in 1993 now the state has to pay minimum wage so just a little tidbit so the next is any individual employed in the activities of a public supported non-profit organization except laundry employees nurses aides or practical nurses I could not tell you what a public supported non-profit organization is within the meaning of the original act I have done some research on this and have not been able to figure that out I'm continuing to look into it to see if I can figure it out I'm not sure if you found an answer this dark I have been trying to find an answer for that for years there appears to be no legislative history on it and it is the best of my knowledge that the department has never further defined that or allowed any business or employer to pay some minimum wage based on the invocation of that particular exemption because we really do not know what you have a signal to go yeah so I'm close to the end of this section so why don't I just finish it off and then I'll stop and the only thing I could conjecture based on conversations that we had and it was conjecture was training facility whatever state hospital elements that might have laundry, employees, nurses aides or practical nurses but that's just conjecture that's just what was were there such things as 501 C3 in 1957 I'm sure the language hasn't changed that much so I would have to look back the other thing to note with this is that the original language also included an exemption from employees subject to the FLSA and it's in your statutes there if you look back at the notes for 383 it'll show you the language that was deleted back in 1967 and I think what it said is accept laundry employees nurses aides, practical nurses or employees who are otherwise subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act meaning they're otherwise covered by the federal minimum wage that was taken out I presume because it's superfluous although well not superfluous but because it would basically exempt almost everybody because we cover pretty much everyone the same and now that our minimum wage is separated from the federal that would create some issues but again it doesn't provide any insight into what they were going for here when they enacted this this is probably the one exemption in here for me that's the most difficult to rationalize and figure out how it applies so the last couple here individual employee in an executive administrative or professional capacity these are the folks outside of state government that you commonly hear referred to as exempt employees they're exempt from the minimum wage and hour laws managerial employees, professional employees like lawyers etc they're not completely synonymous with salary though right there is a salary test that's part of this and this is what we talked about in the context of representative Howard's bill a few weeks back individuals making home deliveries of newspapers or advertising this was originally I believe what is it home delivery news boys or something like that that language has been modified or modernized a little bit but basically newspaper delivery is not subject to the minimum wage taxicab drivers not subject to the minimum wage I do not know whether this applies to Uber drivers or Lyft drivers if they were determined to be an employee which is also a question that the department has done some work on and I believe under certain circumstances would define them as independent contractors provided they need certain standards but again I don't know if someone who is working on a ride sharing app who was determined to be an employee would be subject to this and then outside sales persons this is basically someone who is probably earning commission going door to door and then finally students working during all or any part of the school year or regular vacation periods we've talked about this in the context of S23 originally it was students attending school and working part time that was amended in 1959 and then the original 1957 law also included an exemption for any switchboard operator employed in the public telephone exchange which has not more than 750 stations I assume that this became obsolete as we got automatic telephone switchboards which I learned all about while I was putting this together very interesting stuff but I still am not entirely sure what they are referring to by stations I assume that that is like end number codes for folks there but that is it so I will return to you guys whenever I next have a chance to sell 384 when you get settled in next door just give us an idea if you think you're going to be done at all I doubt it so we'll pick up tomorrow we'll also pick up even if you are free thank you you're exempt yeah and then we will have to we have time tomorrow depending on how the floor is I didn't look at the notice calendar today to catch up on H107 again we have to we have to hear what the changes are on paid family leave and vote on those both the Ways and Means Committee version and the appropriations version of the bill and that will be sometime we'll try to fit that in tomorrow we have time in the 1-8-11 15 do you want to stay on the record um no we can go off the record so this is also a prelude to this work through I've asked Damien to do a presentation showing up when we have time on our labor laws we have several different labor laws that talk about public sector unions and we're going to have an education on that um simply because at some point we'll be asked to understand how state employees are paid how it works through the pay act what the different state public sector unions are why they're different where they're similar so that's part of our larger portfolio so we'll get a presentation from Damien on that when things from family medical leave insurance settle down which will be this week presumably the other news of note is that Deanna and her partner this weekend um but it's still touch and go it's very, very neonatal and what I heard this morning from representative Chestnut Tangerine was that the babies had a tough day yesterday um but we may not see representative Gonzalez for quite some time with the rest of this um just for that reason the babies 10 weeks or 8 weeks 8 to 10 weeks premature so they are they are working it and really trying to make it doctors are working hard so we'll keep keep her in her thoughts keep her in her thoughts and um so let's take half an hour now just to relax and um and then we'll come back and talk a little bit more about what we're hearing about minimum wage I think the rest of the day is going to be pretty light because of what's happening next door so then tomorrow morning we will have testimony on minimum wage from um advocates and business owners so we'll get right back to it thank you thank you I just wanted to kind of wrap up the day I don't know if we want to talk about what we've heard so far to continue on a kind of learning process about about S23 and about minimum wage I don't know if there's anything else we want to add right now we are going to hear a lot tomorrow from advocates and business owners in the morning and we'll probably schedule some folks in tomorrow afternoon um as well so I don't know if anybody had any you know initial thoughts or if we just want to hold it until we you know hear more and I don't think we have a lot that's just to sift out yet Joyce's work will Joyce's work is there we'll return to it before we finish the conversation so we'll have a better context of what we're talking about um Tommy anything in comparison to last year uh well I like that Joyce's you know the information it's different from the last time that we look at that no I suspect tomorrow we'll hear many of the same arguments that we heard last time so probably not a lot I'm just wondering if you're aware of anybody trying to offer any amendments on on any of it yeah on changing the life of the time or the changing of the $15 to something else no one would go out of their way to tell me about that oh that's probably true yeah you know I have not heard that there's a different that there's a different length um I have not heard anything else about the and we'll hear more before we're done on the child care portion we'll hear more on the tipped portion um yeah we'll hear more on and then and then the study the reason I want to hear more about these exemptions the question is do we talk more about this in the study because we can't change we don't have the time to change anything about there's a book that's this thick about describing what agriculture is we're not going to change the exemption on agriculture the question is do you start to include it in the summer study committee this year or do you wait a different time because the summer study that's proposed in the bill is to talk about paid youth wage and the tip wage so we'll just decide as we hear the testimony but I wanted to I wanted to we don't usually talk about the whole statute you know and I wanted to bring out this whole statute because I think that the exemptions and the exemptions the time of half which is the next section that they're going to go through it's just important to understand that you know just because we're changing the minimum wage as a whole what is it what is it impacting we have I mean for all the years that we've done this bill in this committee we haven't really expanded that thinking I won't go so far as to say that that agriculture needs or wants to have their minimum wage laws changed but if we do we need their input that's a big chunk of conversation because that's the basis of their economy and they may be paying though most people may be paying the minimum wage having the ability to pay less than that is important to the business structure of a lot of these farms so we're not in any position to change that without any input but we're certainly going to get a lesson and see how broad this statute is and get an idea of how antiquated some of the language is and decide whether we want to do anything this year or next year on it and for me it's very embracing to see the exemptions that the agriculture and the home workers or whatever and it seems so outdated not that it should change it but I think to include in the studies so that we can understand seems pretty right to me because my first plus is it looks so racist that those two things are excluded and it's people my workers are working in the farms in many instances so there's a reality there and then also this health care workers are in homes now it's not just babysitters that is such a broad observance and joke about we don't have people like that but some people do and to those people have a voice so I think that including those exemptions in the study makes a lot of sense without saying there's not enough information to understand it yet but to keep hiding it you know every chapter that we try to address it seems moral is the right word but it just makes me go queasy to other more right and there's so much in in our statute that's ancient and again we pass the law to get rid of the laws of language because it's still existed throughout the statute years ago and you know you know if the federal definition of agriculture is however this thick you know and then we know from our earlier testimony that like employees and employers are defined differently in many different statutes there's not one definition of that and there's reasons for it but it is confusing to say well which employer definition which employee definition are you talking about today and today we're talking about the ones who are exempt you know that that employee that we're talking about that receives a minimum wage may fit under those other employee categories as well but in this particular case specifically about minimum wage these people we're talking about so I don't even know how many people who are tipped workers anymore outside of servers or restaurants I mean who's on the list and I we got something from that girl I don't think it has that answer in there but like who who are the tipped workers I just don't know valets butlers caddies you know catering staff chamber maids are there any chamber maids left and the answer is yes somewhere so yeah but they I don't think they're exempt from I don't think it is I'm not sure it is that's what I was about to ask I think that's the salary position well right but some of the hotel chains I mean I always leave floors per night when I stay and some of those smaller or not smaller but lower scale places are they're working back and they're taking those tips and using them to spread the salary thing out and again there's a situation that's just like wait a minute if I leave $5 does that and that person doesn't get it you know where they get a dollar of it or they get a dollar from this room I mean I just that's unclear you know should should those people be exempt I mean again I don't know and I don't I think Matt Barrow is just saying that they can't tell you tell us who tip-templates are either so there's this broad definition of people were hotel motel, recreation and restaurant workers and you're like I think generally federal government has guidelines for what it considers definitions of workers including so on and so the states have to follow that guideline they can exceed it but they can't they can't change at least that's by understanding they can't change definitions or include or exclude people that have already been defined by the federal government and not make changes in the same way as we can as a state we can tweak in some ways Medicaid but basically we cannot even though we pay 40% into the Medicaid the federal government pays 60% supports it but we're restricted by their guidelines as to what we can do so I think it's this follow suit so it's well that's a question to have I mean for protected classes the federal government only has 5 or 6 and we have 12 or 13 but we pay a higher minimum wage than the FLSA but again when you have a book that's this thick a federal book that's this thick that describes what an agricultural what agriculture means or what domestic service means our choices then are as described in USC 25 which means that we need to know this much or is it something different and clearly the legislature in the past I think probably just relied on what the federal law was by not stating it you're relying on the federal law you can't say anything do anything contrary to the federal law um yeah generally speaking I think that's right so if the federal government says this is a definition these people are included these people are excluded I don't know how much wiggle room there is we could probably include more we could probably do more positive change than negative but again I mean to have the attorney for the Labor Department who's been there forever say I've never come across this or we've never been able to answer that question or it may be that two weeks from now we say yeah let's what can we do what can we pass out of here what can we pass out of the house what can be passed by the senate we'll make those determinations now I was just learning that these are this is these are the rules in the state of Vermont today so I had a chuckle on a little bit of a lighter side I had a chuckle as state workers and minimum wage and I'm thinking we're state workers and we get paid a salary while we're here but we're here four and a half months a year but we work 12 months because when we're not here we're still on call and when things come up as with our constituents we have to respond don't do the math I know when I first came here my first term one of the legislators jokingly said well you know what if you took all the hours that we spend in the state house and then you tack on the hours that we work when we're not in the state house we get $1.70 an hour and I thought that was very I thought it was very funny and then I completed my first session and then the summer followed and the falls followed and I said oh yes he was right but when they say oh you have Mondays off well I got them to three meetings on a Monday for you know and this was the only job that you had then you're not going to qualify for that there's no way that you can do six months over the last 12 months that really gets you to qualify so then we would be saving the state money from that perspective over our citizen legislature so part time I know for select board people I would say wow you wanted to do that so you should volunteer and it's like I got $600 a year my father-in-law is with the mayor he's in his fourth term so he's 16 years after this one works out and I think he's on a salary of like $200 a month New Hampshire legislature makes way less than $100 a year yeah there's like $400 over there what does New Mexico get if they only meet for a month I don't know but New Hampshire meets for a long time yeah it's very few full time legislations New York New York just it's 12 months they're paying big time they just passed a paper plus they get offices what do they make