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The federal minimum wage bill exposes the maximum hypocrisy of those who claim that such a law helps the working poor. While Congress intends to impose a higher wage floor in the Northern Mariana Islands, Democrats have made a back room deal to ensure it will stay clear of American Samoa . By doing so, they have acknowledged that using the force of law to raise wages destroys the jobs for those who need them the most.
In American Samoa, the tuna cannery may indeed “rule the roost” as the ”’Washington Post”’ likes to imply. The fact is that our canneries have a choice just as every American family has when they go out shopping. The tuna industry doesn