Bills on minimum wage stir debate in Augusta
Labor and small business representatives were in Augusta to urge lawmakers to debate several bills that would lower the minimum wage, particularly ones that would create a lower wage for teen workers.
The Legislature’s Committee on Labor and Housing heard public testimony on seven bills that that would change minimum wage law. Six of the bills would lower it. Under current law, the Maine minimum wage is $11 an hour and will go up to $12 an hour on Jan. 1, 2020. It is set to increase in January 2021 and in subsequent years.
In the battle over minimum wage, opposing views were put forth by the AFL-CIO, which favors increases, and National Federation of Independent Businesses, which says its small business membership is hurt by wage increases.
Maine AFL-CIO said it opposes “in the strongest terms” measures that would create a “subminimum” wage for young adults, it said in a news release, referring to three bills, LD 612, LD 739 and LD 808. The AFL-CIO, which represents more than 40,000 Maine workers in more than 50 unions, also opposed bills that would have a lower minimum wage for employees at small businesses and in most of the state, aside from a large portion of Cumberland County, (LD 830, LD 1098). It also opposes LD 425, which would lower the minimum wage to $10 an hour and eliminate the cost-of-living increase.
“No one who works full-time should live in poverty. That’s why Mainers voted overwhelmingly to raise wages,” Maine AFL-CIO Executive Director Matt Schlobohm said in the release. “The cost of food, gas, housing and rent has gone up for years, but wages haven’t kept pace.”
The opposing view
On the other side of the argument, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which said it represents thousands of small businesses in Maine, urged “a slower phase-in of the next minimum wage increase to $12 in January 2020 so that those companies can better adjust to the steep series of increases.”
It said the $12 minimum wage, which would go into effect next year, “translates to a 33% increase since 2017, or $6,700 in added wages and payroll taxes for each minimum wage job.”
The organization’s members were surveyed about the increase, and they responded that they’ve had to raise prices, tighten payroll and cut entry level, jobs, said David Clough, state director of NFIB in Maine. “These family businesses and entrepreneurs are having to make tough choices with the state’s rising labor costs, and it will only get worse when the $12 minimum wage kicks in early next year.”
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