Nothing says "Happy Labor Day" like a new Minimum Wage

People who work hard and play by the rules deserve a break

By Matt Patrick

Pushing to make a higher minimum wage the Legislature’s top priority of the fall, local elected officials and Massachusetts labor leaders joined today to celebrate the Commonwealth’s working men and women.

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

I can think of no better way to honor the spirit of Labor Day and to reward the efforts of low wage workers across the Commonwealth than to raise the minimum wage. People who earn the minimum wage are people who work hard and play by the rules.  They are the people we count on every day to do the jobs that keep Massachusetts running. 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 the amount needed to make ends meet in Massachusetts today. A bill before the Legislature (House No. 3782) would bring the minimum wage, in stages, to $8.25 per hour by 2007 and guarantee annual cost of living adjustments in the future.

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,” he said. “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.”

Matt Patrick and his wife Louise

Raise would benefit 261,000 Massachusetts' residents

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 others 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; 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.

Representative Matt Patrick represents the Upper Cape towns of Falmouth, Mashpee and part of Barnstable. He is in his third term as  State Representative to the 3rd Barnstable District.