Bangor considering minimum wage hike proposals
Bangor city councilors are expected to decide at a meeting in two weeks whether to raise the city’s minimum wage.
The Bangor Daily News reported that the City Council will be reviewing two proposals.
The first, from Councilor Joe Baldacci, who has filed to run for Congress next year, would increase Bangor’s minimum wage in annual increments from the state-level $7.50 per hour to $9.75 by 2018. The wage would then increase based on the Consumer Price Index.
The other proposal came after attempts to pass Baldacci’s proposal faltered, the BDN reported. In the second proposal, the first incremental increase wouldn’t happen until 2017.
The proposals would apply to any employers with more than four employees, and only to employees over the age of 18.
The increase in the second proposal would come after a potential statewide referendum vote to increase Maine’s minimum wage to $12 per hour by 2020.
Bangor councilors, who have largely agreed that an increase is needed, said a city minimum wage increase would serve as a backup measure if the state effort failed, the BDN reported.
In November, voters in Portland rejected a proposed ordinance that would have incrementally raised the city’s minimum wage to $15 per hour for businesses employing 500 or more people by 2017 and all businesses by 2019. An ordinance approved by city councilors to increase Portland’s minimum wage to $10.10 per hour will go into effect at the start of 2016.
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