COLUMBIA - Two senators have filed a bill calling for South Carolina to have a minimum wage of $6.15, a dollar more than the current federal minimum.

The federal minimum wage has been at $5.15 an hour since 1997. Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage is at its lowest level since 1955. The legislation from Sens. Darrell Jackson, D-Hopkins, and Gerald Malloy, D-Hartsville, also requires the Department of Mental Health to pay minimum wage for patients engaged in non-therapeutic work.

While that legislation might help household budgets, other bills target health.

Jackson also filed a bill that would ban smoking outside schools and inside teacher lounges or private offices.

Sen. David Thomas, R-Fountain Inn, filed a bill that would require restaurants to disclose they serve food prepared using trans fats and make that an item state food safety inspectors monitor.

Those bills are among 39 legislators filed last week.

Other legislation would:

--Allow local governments to impose impact fees on new residential construction to offset school facility costs.

--Limit state spending increases to no more than 5 percent in any year unless two-thirds of the members of the House and of the Senate vote to spend more.

--Allow pharmacists not to dispense the so-called "morning after" pill based on "ethical, moral or religious grounds" and bar their employers from firing them.

--Further limit local government abilities to use eminent domain powers.

--Ban common law marriages.