BOSTON – The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center released a study Tuesday advocating for Beacon Hill to index the Commonwealth’s minimum wage to inflation, and raise it to $11 per hour by 2016.
Tuesday evening, the State Senate obliged the study, approving the bill by a 32-7 margin.
It will now go on to the House of Representatives, a body which isn’t likely to vote on it until after the new year.
The bill would raise the minimum wage by a dollar each year from its current rate of $8 per hour, already one of the ten highest rates in the country, until 2016, when it would be indexed to inflation and rise each year according to the region’s cost of living.
The study, titled “The Regional Impact of a Minimum Wage Increase”, claims that an increase in the state’s minimum wage would raise the wages of around 568,000 workers throughout the state, roughly twelve percent of the Bay State’s population.
In Westfield and Agawam, which the study designates as “West Central Hampden County”, 11,300 workers will be directly affected by the increase and 3,900 will be indirectly affected, 27 percent of the workforce of the two cities.
The study says that the Commonwealth’s three largest cities, Boston, Worcester, and Springfield, will see around 92,000 workers affected, which account for 18, 22, and 29 percent of their respective workforces.
“This bill offers a much-needed helping hand to many of our residents and takes us one step closer to providing a living wage in the Commonwealth,” said Senate President Therese Murray (D-Plymouth). “We are facing a huge income gap that only continues to widen, where the workers at the top see large wage increases and the workers at the bottom are at a standstill… Increasing the minimum wage to $11 per hour by 2016 will directly affect nearly half a million minimum wage and low-wage workers in Massachusetts.”
Sen. Benjamin B. Downing (D-Pittsfield), who represents the hilltowns of Blandford and Chester within his district, has been a vocal advocate for the bill, and was especially pleased with the Senate’s decision.
“Raising the minimum wage is a common sense step to making work pay and reducing poverty,” said Downing. “This legislation restores value the minimum wage has lost since 1968 and ensures it won’t lose value going forward.”
This new piece of legislation would also implement a 50 percent increase in the wages of tipped employees, which some local employees view as a flashy headline and nothing more.
While the bill enjoyed almost universal support from Senate Democrats, who hold a 36-4 super majority in the upper house, not all were impressed.
Sen. Kathleen O’Connor Ives (D-Newburyport) stated that any increase be capped at $9 and be delayed until July 1, along with suggesting a proposal that any business with fewer than 50 employees should be allowed to remain at the current minimum wage, in addition to stopping further inflation-related increases.
Westfield Republican Don Humason, Jr., who was sworn in Wednesday as the newest state senator for the 2nd Hampden and Hampshire District seat, said that he didn’t a get a chance to vote on the bill, and while he couldn’t make a personal comment on it, the feeling among his new colleagues in the Senate is that it could have a damaging effect on small businesses.
“The feeling is that it hurts low-skilled, inexperienced workers, which is what minimum wage is for,” Humason said. “I will most likely get to vote on it when it comes back on the conference committee report next year.”
“Either way, we’re not going to get anything because all of it goes to taxes anyway, right?” said a waitress at a downtown restaurant who asked for anonymity Wednesday. “As long as our tips stay the same…”
The current minimum wage for tipped workers is $2.63 per hour.
