On Labor Day Weekend, Representative Keenan
BOSTON – With Labor Day around the corner, Representative John Keenan took the opportunity to push for the passage of a bill that would increase and index the Commonwealth’s minimum wage. Representative Keenan was joined by colleagues in the legislature and labor leaders in calling for making a higher minimum wage one of the legislature’s priorities this fall. “What better way to honor the spirit of Labor Day and to justly compensate low wage workers across Massachusetts than to increase and index the minimum wage?” said Representative Keenan, “People who earn minimum wage work hard and play by the rules. We count on them every single day to do the jobs that keep our Commonwealth moving. They deserve to be treated fairly.” Massachusetts’ minimum wage currently stands at $6.75 per hour, providing a full-time worker with an annual salary of just $14,040 – well below the inflation-adjusted salary earned by minimum wage workers in the 1960s and 1970s and thousands of dollars less than the amount needed to make ends meet in Massachusetts today. A bill before the legislature, House No.3782 of which Rep. Keenan is a cosponsor, would bring the minimum wage, in stages, up to $8.25 per hour by 2007 and guarantee an annual cost of living adjustment. Robert J. Haynes, President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, praised legislators for their support of a higher minimum wage and urged the legislature as a whole to act as soon as possible to boost the wage standard and protect it against inflation. “Raising the minimum wage is critical for thousands of families across the state. It’s about providing deserving people with an opportunity to better their quality of life,” said Haynes, “They ought to be able to attain their goals of homeownership and providing for their family. By raising the minimum wage, we can help them do that.” According to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, a public policy think tank, raising the minimum wage to $8.25 per hour would directly increase the wages of approximately 261,000 Massachusetts workers, with many other experiencing indirect increases in their pay. Roughly three out of every five of the workers who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage are women and, contrary to many of the stereotypes associated with the minimum wage, three out of every four workers who would gain are adults age 20 or older. Responding to claims that a higher minimum wage would have adverse economic affects, over 50 economists from across Massachusetts issued a statement earlier this year indicating that an increase in the minimum wage is “unlikely to affect jobs” but would “raise purchasing power and could yield…benefits for Massachusetts businesses, such as reduced turnover and lower training costs.” The first minimum wage of any kind in the United States
was enacted by the Commonwealth in 1912. The Massachusetts minimum wage
was last increased in 2001, but, because it is not automatically protected
against inflation, it has lost more than fifty cents of its purchasing
power since then. Raising the minimum wage to $8.25 per hour would give
the Commonwealth the highest rate in the nation; however, Massachusetts
is one of the most expensive states in the country when it comes to
cost of living. In indexing its minimum wage to inflation, Massachusetts
would join four other states – Washington, Oregon, Florida, and
Vermont – that either currently follow that practice or will begin
to do so over the next several years.
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