Tennessee legislators increase their own minimum wage

Just days after killing a minimum wage increase for Tennessee workers, the Tennessee General Assembly voted to give themselves a 9.5% raise, nearly three times the raise voted for state employees. They also voted to increase the governor's pension by more than 83%, from $42K to $77K annually, and to raise their own pensions.

Aside from the obvious hypocrisy, there's a bit of irony in the fact that the legislator's raises were slipped in at the last minute. The reason given for killing the minimum wage increase was that the sponsors waited too long to introduce their bill and its amendments, which did not allow enough time for review by the judiciary committee. There was plenty of time to give themselves a raise, however, because giving yourself a raise apparently doesn't require any review. Tennessee working people would like to have jobs like that.