A United States lawmaker has an added amendment to the federal minimum wage bill to include American Samoa.
Congressman Faleomavaega Eni Hunkin says the minimum wage bill has been attached to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill.
He says the US House Committee on Appropriations has passed the bill which included an amendment offered by Representative, Mark Kirk, to extend minimum wage rates to American Samoa.
However, neither the bill nor the amendment can take effect unless the House passes the bill and only if the Senate agrees.
He also says the House Committee on Education and Labor and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP, still have control, or jurisdiction, over the minimum wage portion of the Emergency Supplemental Bill.
Faleomavaega says this means that it will be up to these two committees to determine American Samoa and CNMI's outcome in the minimum wage bill.
