E-Congress

YLI Home

Work on Your Bill

Eligibility
This step of the bill-writing process asks you to identify which groups of people will be affected by the bill you propose. This should be the people who will receive a benefit or penalty if your legislation is enacted. For example, one group of students wrote a bill that increased the minimum wage for workers who were drug-free. Read their eligibility section below:

SECTION 3. ELIGIBILITY.
An individual will receive a minimum of $15.00 per hour if he or she
(1) is legally employed at any American business;
(2) has a work permit;
(3) passes a federally regulated drug test at least once a year.

Notice that this eligibility section is very specific. In #1, the authors explain that to be eligible, workers must be legally entitled to work, a provision that would eliminate illegal immigrants and any other undocumented workers. Item #2 includes all workers who are legal immigrants to the United States but not yet citizens. You may have heard this work permit called a green card. Finally, #3 requires that eligible workers pass a drug test at least once a year.



Back Continue