American Samoa House of Representative member, Larry Sanitoa, has called for the House leadership to thoroughly review the impact of the next minimum wage hike in May.
Mr Sanitoa asked House Speaker Savali Talavou Ale and the appropriate committees to request that the local government provide the latest paper on the impact of the next 50 cent hike in the minimum wage.
He says there are only 4 months left and the territory needs to understand the impact of the next increase on the government and as well as on the private sector.
He says the U.S. is in a serious recession and there are many businesses that are in the process of foreclosing or laying off people.
Therefore he says American Samoa needs to seriously look at it's own situation with the canneries, private sector and the government.
He did note that perhaps it was too late to get anything going with the U.S. Congress to hold off the next wage hike.
However, he did say that perhaps American Samoa can start preparing itself for future increases.
