Tax Credits And The Minimum Wage

I previously wrote about the effect of an increase in the minimum wage when such an increase was enacted here in California. Now the new Democrat majority in Congress is moving to increase the federal minimum as well. Interestingly, Democrat Senator Max Baucus, the new chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, feels there is a need to increase tax incentives for businesses in order to help them cope with a minimum wage increase. The website tax-news.com has a press release. And here is a link to a PDF report from the Senate Committee describing the Senator's recommendations. The Senator, a long-time advocate of the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, is proposing some significant enhancements to the incentive. None of the ideas are new, but now that he is the Committee Chair and the provisions are being linked to the inevitable increase in the minimum wage, I wonder if they will have a better chance of passage.