Minimum wage
In hopes of bettering the lives of those working for the lowest pay permissible by law, this state has passed several initiatives and pieces of legislation, including one that will raise the state minimum wage to a livable pay floor.
Currently, this state’s minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, hardly enough to get by. However, Gov. Martin O’Malley signed legislation on May 5 that will gradually raise this state’s minimum wage to $10.10 per hour by 2018. Similarly, on Wednesday, Prince George’s County Council Bill 94-2013, which raises the minimum wage in Prince George’s County, went into effect. With this legislation, the county’s minimum wage has increased from $7.25 per hour to $8.40 per hour. The minimum wage will increase every year on Oct. 1 until 2017, capping the county’s minimum wage at $11.50 per hour.
The issue of minimum wage has become prominent at this university with the presence of the Student Labor Action Project. The group, dedicated to ending student debt and undesirable workplace conditions, wrote an open letter to university President Wallace Loh asking him to set a livable minimum wage of $15 per hour for all on-campus workers.
In line with O’Malley’s goal of making the minimum wage livable, the County Council accepted Bill 94-2013 on Nov. 26 to collaborate with Montgomery County and Washington to create a “regional minimum wage” to keep up with the growing costs of living in the metropolitan area. At a celebration of the $1.15 hourly minimum wage increase in both Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, activists gathered in Silver Spring and said the increases should come at a quicker pace.
Opponents of raising the minimum wage in this county and the rest of the state worry the increase would hurt small business trying to re-establish themselves after the recession. However, raising the minimum wage will provide exponential benefits to the economy and working class.
According to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute released in January, when the proposed state bill would have hiked the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016, raising the minimum wage would have resulted in $456 million in new economic activity and created or supported roughly 1,600 jobs.
Though the version of the bill that passed delays the full increase until 2018, the analysis holds true — raising the minimum wage increases quality of life, but not at the expense of consumer spending and job creation. Despite opponents’ reservations, raising the minimum wage is necessary, especially in a region that has to deal with the growing costs of living.
According the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2012, 8.7 percent of this county’s population was below the poverty line, and 9.4 percent of state residents live below the poverty level. Raising the minimum wage hopefully would lower the number of people in this county and state struggling to get by below the poverty level.
However, despite the desire to see a faster wage rise, astronomical increases of the minimum wage cannot occur in a rapid-fire succession. This state’s economy would go into a fiscal tailspin. Instead, the community, labor officials and the government need to work together to ensure that the minimum wage increases occur on schedule and provide the benefits they have promised. With the increase to $8.40 per hour, minimum wage employees in Prince George’s County will have an extra $45 per week in their wallets before taxes, and roughly $2,340 more per year.
While this state and Prince George’s County cannot perform a fiscal miracle overnight, it is mildly reassuring that there will be wage increases across the county and state that boost minimum-wage earners. It is time for opponents of raising the minimum wage to acknowledge that $7.25 per hour simply doesn’t provide enough income anymore, if it ever did.
