Business & Labor Square Off in Perennial Debate over Minimum Wage
By Cyndi Roy for the State House News Service
      Low-wage workers squared off against business leaders for more than three hours Wednesday over a proposal that would pay Massachusetts workers the highest minimum wage in the country.
      Dozens of residents, employers, and economists turned out at a Beacon Hill hearing to voice their support and opposition to legislation (H 3782) that would hike the minimum wage from $6.75 to $8.25 an hour.
Proponents of the bill filed by Rep. James Marzilli (D-Arlington) and Sen.
Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton) said it would help lift low-wage earners out of
poverty.
      “We are just surviving,” Shaquella Butler told members of the Labor and Workforce Development Committee. “And we, as human beings, should not be made just to survive.”
      A single mother of four who works two jobs and attends college full-time, Butler urged lawmakers to ignore the criticisms of the bill’s opponents, who argue that raising the minimum wage will hurt small businesses and increase costs for consumers.
      Under the proposal, which has the support of more than 50 legislators, the minimum wage would be raised to $7.50 an hour beginning January 1, 2006, and would reach $8.25 on January 1, 2007. Beginning that year, the wages would increase annually based on inflation. Tipped employees would see their wages raised from $2.63 an hour to $3.75 an hour beginning in 2006.
      The minimum wage was last raised by the Legislature in 2000.
Retailers, restaurant owners, and small business leaders oppose the bill,
saying it will make it difficult to compete with larger employers who can
afford to pay workers more without passing the costs on to buyers.
      “Our small, independent members are struggling,” said Christopher Flynn of the Massachusetts Food Association, the leading trade group for the state’s food industry.
      In 1912 Massachusetts became the first state to adopt a minimum wage. It’s now one of 14 states that currently have minimum wage rates higher than the federal hourly rate of $5.15. Washington state has the highest wage floor at $7.35 an hour, followed by Oregon at $7.25. They are the only two states that tie their rates to inflation.
      “People who work hard deserve a fair day’s pay,” Marzilli said at the
outset of the hearing. “The current minimum wage law in Massachusetts does not guarantee that. The minimum wage in Massachusetts right now confines a full time worker who is earning the minimum wage to a life in poverty.”
      According to Marzilli, a single adult needs to make $21,000 a year to reach economic self-sufficiency. Minimum wage workers earn less than $14,000 a year, he said. But bill opponents say most of the 260,000 minimum wage earners are teenagers and entry-level workers who don’t need higher pay.
      “Not only do they not need to earn that much, they probably don’t deserve to earn that much,” said John Hurst, president of the Massachusetts Retailers Association. Supporters of the bill jeered at that suggestion. Many minimum wage workers are single mothers and other adults who work more than one job to support their families, they said.
      “Raising the minimum wage would reestablish, encourage my net worth and self worth I have lost and am trying to regain,” Worcester resident Michaela Young told the committee. A single mother making $6.25 an hour, Young said she worries about not being there for her three children.
      “My children aren’t able to go outside and get to enjoy just being kids,” she said later. “My 14-year-old has to watch my 18-month-old and it’s tough for him.”
      Leaders at the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University say the
legislation would raise the wages of workers paid at the new rate by $405
million. That increase, however, would be offset by the $371 million lost
by an estimated 27,000 workers who would find themselves out of work
because companies can’t afford to retain them, said David Tuerck, director
of the institute.
      Gov. Mitt Romney has not taken a position on the bill, but has expressed support for raising the minimum wage and tying it to inflation. One day after Congress defeated a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage in March, Romney told reporters, "As the cost of living in Massachusetts rises, over time we should raise the minimum wage as well. I'm in favor of a proposal that is consistent with raising it to keep up with inflation."
      Committee co-chair Sen. Thomas McGee (D-Lynn) said the committee will likely take a few weeks to review the testimony before determining whether to endorse the bill. Personally, he supports it, he said.

“We need to do what’s fair,” he said.