News that Idaho leads the nation with the largest percentage of its workers earning minimum wage has sparked criticism from the state’s new Democratic Party chairman Larry Kenck.

    “Idaho has suffered from decades of GOP policies that do very little to encourage high-paying businesses to relocate to Idaho or to stay in Idaho,” Kenck said. “Every time you ask businesses to name their top need, they will say a well-educated and qualified workforce.”

    Kenck said the response of the controlling political party in Idaho has been to further reduce spending on education.

    “So, while Idaho leads the nation in minimum wage workers, we are at the absolute bottom of the nation in our investment in education,” he said. “To make matters worse, just last year our legislators chose to give $35.7 million in cuts to the wealthiest Idahoans even though education budgets still remain far below pre-recession levels.”

    Idaho Democrats picked Kenck as chairman last month during their annual Frank and Bethine Church Gala. He replaces Larry Grant. A former chairman of the Kootenai County Democratic Central Committee, Kenck served as an official with a Teamsters Union group that represents northern Idaho and eastern Washington. He also ran unsuccessfully for state senate seats in 1996 and 1998 and now serves on the Idaho Industrial Commission Advisory Board.

    “We need responsible leadership in our state and we as citizens must hold our state elected leaders accountable for the terrible priorities that put workers and education — and ultimately, businesses — last,” Kenck said in reaction to the minimum wage statistics released Wednesday by the Idaho Department of Labor.

    Idaho’s hourly workers making the federal minimum age or less jumped to 7.7 percent in 2012 — the highest percentage in the nation. The U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics estimated that 31,000 of Idaho’s 404,000 hourly workers were paid the minimum wage last year, an increase of 12,000 from 2011.

    “Our shameful minimum wage problem is just a statistic in the newspaper to the Legislature and governor, but out here in the real world it isn’t a statistic at all — it’s real families of hardworking Idahoans who need fair wages and a fair shot at prosperity to give their children the bright futures they deserve,” Kenck said.

    Kenck said the problem comes from a one-party system of control in Idaho and voters need to elect more Democrats to make sure education is properly funded and higher-paying jobs become available in the Gem State.

    “We need to be a world class education system and not a third-world system,” Kenck said.

    The new Democratic state chairman said years of having Republicans shortchange education is now showing itself in the low paying wages in the state.

    “It’s a chain of events and the economy suffers all the way through,” Kenck said.