The state legislature’s Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules voted Thursday against implementing a proposed increase to the state’s minimum wage that could eventually affect students.

The committee, comprised of six Republicans and four Democrats, voted along party lines to reject the administrative rule advanced by the Department of Workforce Development (DWD), which would have raised the minimum wage to $5.70 an hour this year and $6.50 next year. The state’s minimum wage is currently at $5.15 per hour, the same as the federal minimum wage.

For Sen. Joe Leibham, R-Sheboygan, the Senate co-chair on the Rules Committee, the decision came down to a matter of Wisconsin being able to compete with its Midwestern neighbors for businesses and jobs.

“My concern with the minimum wage proposal considered today is that it would make Wisconsin a virtual island in the Midwest regarding a higher beginning salary, minimum wage,” Leibham said in a statement. “Increasing Wisconsin’s minimum wage at this time could make Wisconsin less competitive as a location to grow or locate a business and the related jobs not only in the Midwest, but nationwide.”

Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, Missouri and Indiana all maintain state minimum wages equal to the federal limit, with only Illinois opting for a higher state wage among states near Wisconsin.

The effort to raise the state minimum wage started earlier this year when Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle appointed a panel of business leaders and labor representatives to a Minimum Wage Advisory Council. A 16-2 vote by the Council in favor of raising the minimum wage prompted Doyle to advance the administrative rule with the DWD.

By Doyle’s estimates, 200,000 Wisconsin residents would have been impacted by a higher minimum wage.

Among those in attendance at the committee meeting Thursday was Madison Ald. Austin King, who described the state’s current minimum wage as “laughable.”

“We have thousands of people in Wisconsin who work hard but can barely pay their rent because of a ridiculously outdated minimum wage,” King alleged. “It’s a slap in the face to the working poor.”

Testimony before the committee lasted for more than five hours, during which time economists and businessmen spoke out in favor of increasing the minimum wage, Rules Committee member Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, said.

As one of the four committee members to vote in favor of the increase, Black said students were among the losers.

“It certainly hurts university students because many of them accept minimum-wage jobs or close to that to pay their way through college,” Black said. Black estimated an inflation-adjusted minimum wage would currently stand at $8 an hour.

University of Wisconsin Junior Isabel Owen, an employee at Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream on State Street, agrees a wage hike would benefit students.

“Anything that would put more money in students’ pockets would greatly benefit them,” Owen said, adding she believed an increased minimum wage would not stop State Street business owners from hiring students.

For penny-pinched UW students, King is quick to point out help is on the way: in January the city of Madison will be increasing the citywide minimum wage to $5.70 per hour. The increase, decided upon by the Madison City Council earlier this year, will incrementally raise the city’s minimum wage to $7.75 by 2008.

But UW senior lecturer of economics Korinna Hansen warns students making slightly more than the minimum wage might be the ones to feel a squeeze from a higher rate.

“Anytime you increase the minimum wage you negatively affect employment, especially for the lower paid individuals around minimum wage and just above,” Hansen said.