Raising the minimum wage is either a great idea or a terrible one, depending on which side of the paycheck you’re on.
For workers and their advocates, the minimum wage can’t be high enough. As State House News reported, polling suggests statewide support for another minimum wage hike. A whopping 59% of Bay State voters said they would support raising the minimum wage here to $20 an hour compared to 33% who are opposed and 7% who are undecided, according to the results of a new poll shared first with MASSterList.
Considering that the current minimum wage in Massachusetts is $15 an hour (the fourth-highest in the country), that’s a 33% raise. Who wouldn’t want that, especially as costs are rising?
It takes nearly $18 as of November 2022 to buy what $15 bought in June 2018, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
You know who’s also impacted by rising costs? Businesses, especially small ones, restaurants, and virtually anyone who has payroll costs to cover.
Their views, however, are back- burnered.
Bills filed by Winchester Sen. Jason Lewis and Reps. Tram Nguyen of Andover and Daniel Donahue of Worcester would raise the minimum wage by $1.25 per hour a year until it reaches $20 in 2027.
The minimum wage hit $15 an hour here in January after five years of incremental raises. But that was January, now it’s March and time for progressives to sound the rallying cry of “more!”
The Raise Up Coalition, the faction of labor and community groups behind the first wage hike, filed paperwork Friday with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance indicating their readiness to organize yet another ballot campaign.
“We considered organizing for a ballot initiative as a way to force the issue a bit,” said SEIU State Council Executive Director Harris Gruman.
Gruman said the $15 won in 2018 “is not worth what [it] was then — not even close.”
Gruman is right – money isn’t worth what it was a few years ago. Not for workers, not for consumers, and not for businesses.
If the minimum wage were to rise $1.25 an hour per year, an 8% raise, that tacks on an extra $50 per week per worker, assuming they work a 40-hour week. Multiply that by say, 10 employees, that’s two grand a month in added operating costs, just in the first year.
For a small business, especially one with tight margins such as a restaurant, that’s a lot to absorb. And what if they can’t, thanks to rising costs? If they don’t want to go out of business, they have to make adjustments: shorter hours of operation, cutting staff, and/or passing cost increases on to customers with higher prices.
Making Massachusetts more competitive and affordable amid high inflation and interest rate hikes can’t be done on the backs of small businesses, said Jon Hurst of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts.
“Thousands went out of business in the last three years due to COVID — from shutdowns, restrictions, lower sales, messaging, supply chain, labor costs, you name it. And now with inflation and interest rates, we can’t be adding more costs,” Hurst said.
Lawmakers and minimum wage hike advocates will try – but at what cost to the state’s economy?
