by Marisela Ramirez, McCormack Graduate School student

We are a society that values hard work and considers it the ticket to living a middle-class lifestyle. But, reaching this lifestyle isn’t always that easy for some. No matter how hard you work, you still find yourself struggling to make ends meet and pay for basic needs.

The minimum wage in 2008 was $8/hour where it remained for six years. In 2014, Governor Deval Patrick signed a bill that raised it to $11 per hour. This law was phased in over three years with a $1 annual increase. The last boost was implemented in January of this year.

In Massachusetts, a minimum wage worker currently earns $11 per hour, amounting to a full-time earned income of only $22,880 a year. Can you imagine trying to live on an income like this?  Or imagine being a parent who cannot provide some of the most basic needs of food, clothing, and child care for your family. We all know that the cost of living only keeps getting higher and higher. While the state has raised the minimum wage over the years, it has failed to take into consideration the increasing cost of living.

The minimum wage has in the last few decades eroded in purchasing value because it has not kept up with the economic growth in the state, and its true value (adjusted for inflation) has continued to decline. Projections from the U.S. Department of Labor show that the purchasing power of minimum wage earners is destined to continue to decline.

Did you know that 91% of those that will be affected by the increase of the minimum wage to $15 are the age of 20 and above? That 56% of those are women and 57% work full-time?  The Economic Policy Institute analysis of a three-year pooled American Community Survey shows this to be projected based on data analyzed.

In January of this year, Bill S. 1004 was referred to the committee on Labor and Workforce Development.  A public hearing was held at the State House on September 19, 2017 when the legislative committee heard personal testimony from various interest groups and individuals supporting the bill to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. This proposal calls for the minimum wage to be raised in $1 annual increments until it reaches $15 an hour, and any increases from that point on would be tied into the consumer price index, changing the current process and removing it from the purview of the Legislature.

Those opposing the current proposal in the Senate for a $15 minimum wage claim that increasing it will drive out businesses from the state and cause an increase in labor costs that cannot be offset by increased sales. Yet, there is no data from research supporting the notion that increasing the minimum wage causes unemployment, and the research that there is shows that the effect on employment is not meaningful.  In fact, the data support that increasing the minimum wage increases the earning of low-wage workers and with more money in their pocket that they are more likely than other wage earners to spend money in the local economy – on basic needs.

Currently, about half of all the state’s lawmakers have signed as co-sponsors in support of the bill. If the Legislature does not decide on it within its current session, the issue might be placed on the 2018 ballot.

In a state that prides itself on being first in a lot of areas such as health care, and in having the most educated population in the nation, we should also be taking pride in providing opportunity for better earnings to those at the lowest wage of the workforce.

Struggling to support your family and yourself in an economy that is prospering should not be made so difficult for some.

 

Marisela Ramirez is a second-year graduate student studying public administration at UMass Boston’s McCormack Graduate School.